The Fight Before Christmas
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: The heartwarming Christmas tale of Lily Evans and James Potter - two plucky kids who hated one other, until the day they really, really didn't. AU.
1. there arose such a clatter

**Author's Note:** This fic is dedicated in its entirety to my Jenn-Jenn. Surprise! I'm your Melonhood Secret Santa, even though I'm 100% sure that you guessed/suspected as much from the moment your Jughead Jones pillowcase arrived in the mail, or from the moment I started sending you secret emails. I am not subtle.

Hopefully, your second gift has arrived in the post by now, but if not, here is Secret Santa Gift Part 3 to keep you occupied. I hope from the bottom of my heart that you love reading it as much as I loved writing it. I was going to post all three chapters on Christmas Eve but I just couldn't wait and so will be posting one chapter every Saturday from now until the 23rd, so you'll have a little gift every week!

Love,

Your Southside Serpent AKA Sarah AKA the Lily to your Sirius

Some admin stuff - this fic is pure fluff with a definite Swan Princess vibe, in honour of some of Jenn's favourite tropes. All that's left to say is Happy Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/whatever holiday you may be celebrating, and I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

 **chapter 1: there arose such a clatter**

 **Lily, 2005**

"Give this to James when we get inside," says her mother, and hands her a prettily wrapped present.

For Lily, who would rather retrieve her book from the car and avoid the social niceties that her parents so enjoy, this request is nothing short of an imposition. The idea of handing a gift to a stranger makes her anxious, though her parents claim that she and James hung out all the time when they were babies, as if babies can 'hang out' in the first place. Babies can't even talk, mostly. Lily started talking very early. She knows this because she has seen the videos, and asked her mother extensive questions on the subject.

Young as she is, Lily can't see the logic in pretending to know someone she doesn't remember, but she knows that her book will not be returned unless she behaves nicely for the Potters. Her parents know her weaknesses well. She takes the gift with a smile and tucks it beneath her arm.

"Good girl," says her mother. "Do you want to ring the bell?"

Lily does. She wants to do everything.

The door is opened by an elegant lady with dark hair, who hugs her mother with a gleeful yelp and bumps her cheek against Dad's.

"Grace!" she exclaims. "Look at you! Andrew! _Oh_ , and the girls! Let me get a good look at you both!"

Though she's wearing a smart dress and very tall shoes, the elegant lady drops to her knees right there on the doorstep, tights scraping against the concrete as if she doesn't care a whit about her clothes.

"I can't believe how much you've both grown," she says, and takes one of Lily's hands in her own. She has very pretty fingernails. "You won't remember me, but you were barely up to my knees when I last saw you."

Lily refrains from pointing out that children tend to grow if you leave them for long enough, unwilling to risk the loss of her reading privileges later. Her parents say that she has a smart mouth in her head, but not the good kind of smart, more the kind of smart that gets her in trouble for 'giving cheek' and 'being sarcastic' or 'making your sister cry,' though the latter is hardly her fault, because Petunia is always crying over something.

In Lily's opinion, any kind of smart is the good kind. To be amazingly clever, much like the characters in the kid detective books she hoards like a squirrel, is her highest ambition in life.

"It's very nice to see you again," says Petunia, with a pompous little curtsey. "My name is Petunia, and this is my sister, Lily."

Lily presses her lips together and puffs out her cheeks to keep her eyes from rolling into the back of her head.

"Well, how sweet of you, Petunia." The elegant lady's eyes dart from Lily's to Petunia's and back again, and her lips quirk upwards just a little.

"Do you like my dress?" Petunia continues. "Mother bought it for me from Harrods."

Petunia's dress is from Primark. It cost £5. Lily was with her mother when she purchased it. She's going to burst.

"It's very lovely," says the elegant lady. She gives Lily's hand a squeeze. "I'm Euphemia."

Lily squeezes back. It seems polite. "I'm Lily."

"You've got stars in your eyes, Lily. Has anyone every told you?"

She shakes her head.

"Do you know what that means?" says Euphemia, and smiles when Lily shakes her head again. "It means your eyes are very beautiful, like your mother's."

Proud of this comparison, Lily beams, though she lost a baby tooth recently and has been trying her best to keep the gap hidden. "Thank you."

"You must be seven now, aren't you?"

"I'll be eight next month."

"And I hear you like to read?"

She nods emphatically. "I'm the best reader in my class, Mr. Flitwick says. He lets me read books for older children."

"Is that so?"

"I finished _Little Women_ last week."

"You know, that's one of my favourites from when I was a girl," says Euphemia seriously. "Did you love it?"

"Yes, but some of it is very sad."

In truth, Lily devoured the book, heart and soul, and became despondent when Beth passed away. Following several days of anxious, deathbed imaginings that culminated in a tear-stained confession when she caught a cold at school, her father had to sit her down and explain that scarlet fever is no longer the dangerous illness that so cruelly robbed Beth of her health. Lily lives to read and reads to live. She knows that _The Secret Garden_ is staying in the car because she tends to ignore people in favour of words on a page, and that this, apparently, is Rude Behaviour. She doesn't see that it's so much of a problem. Perhaps Euphemia won't either.

"There's something for you under our tree that I think you'll like," says Euphemia, and nods to the present under Lily's arm. "What have you got there?"

"I need to give this to James."

"Is that a Christmas present for my son?"

"Mummy says so."

"He's in the living room, sweetheart. Right through there," says Euphemia, pointing.

Petunia, eleven-years-old and already cherishing aspirations of wealth and grandeur, sees her opportunity to command attention and starts to tug on Euphemia's sleeve, imploring her to take another look at her dress. With focus now on her sister, Lily sidles through the front door and into the next room.

A large pair of glasses with a small boy attached launches himself in her path almost as soon as she steps through the door.

"HI!" he bellows.

"Hi," Lily replies, maintaining her decorum. Her mother and father have taught her to use an indoor voice, but the Potters' house is so enormous, so perhaps they need to shout to be heard. Perhaps there are echoes in the halls, ricocheting off the suits of armour, not that Lily has ever seen a suit of armour in real life, or that the Potters own one, but it's nice to imagine. There's no point in owning a mansion if it's not a little spooky.

"I'm James and I'm seven and this is my house," the boy boldly continues, much as one might say, 'I am the king,' except he's too small to be a king - shorter than Lily - and his black hair looks as if he's been rolling around in a ditch somewhere. "Do you like our Christmas tree? It's the biggest Christmas tree in the world."

"It's not," says Lily immediately.

"Not what?"

"Not the biggest tree in the world." Lily glances over the tree to reconfirm her opinion. Though it _is_ very large, it is quite far from the largest. "There's a much bigger tree in New York. I've seen it on the telly."

"When on the telly?"

"In _Home Alone 2_."

"That's a film, though."

"It's still a real tree."

James looks as if he's considering this for a moment, brows slanted behind his glasses, one hand scrubbing through his untidy mop. Then he catches sight of the gift beneath her arm and points at it, their debate forgotten. "Who's that for?"

Lily regards her armpit for a moment. "You."

"Why?"

"It's a Christmas present. My mother bought it for you."

"My mum says that _your_ mum used to work for us before she had babies," says James. "Is that true? Did you know that Mum says we've got to be friends? Can I have my present now?"

The speed at which he can plough through topics is a little alarming.

Lily likes things to be orderly, both in and outside of her head. She likes to write lists, arranges her stuffed animals in order of size, knows how to make her own bed and keeps her _Star Wars_ figures inside their boxes, untouched and beloved. Once, Petunia threatened to take Princess Leia out of her box and flush her down the toilet, which enraged Lily so much that she slapped her across the face – the first and only time she's been reprimanded for violence.

James can't seem to keep his hair tidy, let alone his words, which is almost worse than having her book confiscated. But Lily is well behaved in company, always. She dutifully holds out the gift, and he pounces like a kitten.

"Cool, thanks!" he enthuses, and smiles at her, wide and gap-toothed. "What's your name again?"

"Lily Evans."

"I'm James Potter."

"I knew that."

Ignoring her, James drops to his bottom and tears a strip out of the paper, clawing haphazardly at his present with no regard for her mother's neat, beautiful wrapping. Lily's orderly little heart nearly stops in its tracks.

"What are you doing?!" she gasps, horrified.

"I'm opening my present."

"But it's only Christmas Eve!"

"So?" He looks up at her and shrugs. "I'll hide it under the others, or I'll say that you did it."

Lily decides that she doesn't like James Potter _at all_.

 **James, 2006**

James really hates it when Lily and Petunia come to visit, or at least, he hates it sometimes.

There are upsides to their visits, namely their parents. His own mum doesn't let him eat junk food, but Mr. Evans takes him to McDonald's and buys him a large milkshake to go with his Happy Meal, and Mrs. Evans likes to bring him new toys. She's never had a son, she says, so James is her special little pal. If Mr. and Mrs. Evans could visit alone, everything would be great.

But he can't stand the girls.

Petunia is whiny and snobby and rude, and puts on airs because she gets to sit at the adults' table now that she's 'almost a woman,' whatever that's supposed to mean. James thinks his parents don't like her very much, especially Mum, who has a certain way of shutting her lips tight that tells him everything he needs to know. That gives him some satisfaction, and luckily, Petunia is so stuck-up that she rarely speaks to him anyway. Sometimes she doesn't even come. She's nearly thirteen now, so she has her own friends.

That leaves him stuck with Lily, and she's the real problem. Only James can see her for what she really is. His parents worship her. They think she's perfect.

Even worse, she _is_ perfect, which is precisely why James doesn't like her.

James _tries_ to be good, but it's so very hard, especially when there are so many fun things to do in the world, and when so much of what's fun involves pranks and tricks and – on one occasion – running away from home to give his mother a fright. He didn't expect her to call the police, though all involved agreed that the ransom note he left on his bed made his kidnap difficult to believe. He should have asked for money, instead of a cat. Still, it was fun to see his picture in the newspaper, and anyway it doesn't matter. Lily _never_ misbehaves, and it simply isn't fair.

Lily talks with fancy words, like she thinks she's grown-up. All she ever wants to do is read, or talk about reading, which means she's dead boring to be around. Lily is _so_ clever. She is _so_ respectful of her elders. Lily bonded with _his_ mother when she was a baby and her own mum was ill. She snitches on him all the time, like when he set fire to the microwave, or when he drew on the back of her dress with a permanent marker. How was he supposed to know that popcorn only takes a couple of minutes? How was he supposed to know what 'permanent' meant?

And yeah, maybe he picks on her a little, but it's her own fault if she can't take a joke. He didn't _mean_ to drop her copy of _Matilda_ in the toilet, it just fell out of his hand.

Spending time with her is unbearable cruelty. He even tried calling ChildLine to protest this mistreatment, but his father caught him on the phone and his PlayStation 3 was confiscated for a week.

Everyone is against him, and her most of all. She even finds a way to ruin his favourite time of year.

His sweet, loving mother is complicit in this treachery. Christmas is only nine days away when she entices James to the shopping centre with the promise of visiting Santa's grotto. He heartily agrees to come along and swears to stay on his best behaviour, but then Mrs. Evans turns up to drop Lily off, and he sees that he has been fooled. Forced to visit Santa with Lily Evans, of all people, he writhes with embarrassment. He doesn't want people to think that she's his friend, or worse, his girlfriend. The adults are always asking James if Lily is his girlfriend, only to laugh when he furiously denies it.

His mother, the worst perpetrator, leads them into the queue for Santa's grotto after an hour of shopping for clothes, in complete ignorance of the pain she's inflicting on her only child. The grotto is so cool - a big gingerbread house covered in glittery snow with reindeer footprints in the ground - but James is in too much of a huff to properly enjoy it.

"Isn't Lily pretty in her new clothes?" she sighs, adjusting the fancy silver button on Lily's smart, pea-green coat. 'Isn't Lily pretty?' is Mum's favourite phrase, alongside 'spit that out right now,' and 'well, you deserved to be taught a lesson.'

"Thank you, Euphemia," says Lily sweetly, which makes James want to be sick. _Euphemia_! As if she and Mum are both adults talking together!

"I think _you're_ pretty, Mum," says James loyally.

Mum ruffles his hair and calls him her sweet baby boy, to which Lily rolls her eyes, but his mother doesn't see. This is the worst thing about her - she's awful, but only in secret. Nobody ever sees that Lily Evans is a ninja, getting in her jabs when the adults' backs are turned, only James.

He quickly pulls a face at her, which she ignores.

"What are you asking Santa for?" she instead enquires.

"The Nintendo Wii."

"My friend Mary says that they're dangerous," Lily ominously replies. "She says that that the straps snap off and the handles go flying across the room and cause injuries. Some people have smashed their televisions. You'll have to be really careful when you play with it."

"I'm not letting _you_ play with it."

"I don't _want_ to play with it."

"That's not very kind, James," his mother admonishes. "Of course, you can play with the Wii, sweetheart."

"That's okay, I'm getting a _Star Wars_ Lego set and some new books."

" _Star Wars_ is stupid," says James. He has never seen _Star Wars_ , but Lily's obsessed with it, so it's worth insulting.

" _Star Wars_ is _not_ stupid," says Lily, glowering at him. " _The Empire Strikes Back_ is one of the best films ever made."

He laughs, loud and scathing. "It's stupid and you're stupid."

"You don't even know what you're talking about."

"I know more than you, stupid."

"Hush, now, both of you!" his mother interjects, and points toward the grotto. "Don't be so naughty, James. Santa can probably hear you, and what do you think he'll do then?"

James pales at the thought. He's not exactly riding high on Santa's nice list, according to the chart his parents keep in the kitchen, for which Santa sends weekly updates. He has _just_ earned himself an Arsenal jersey by the skin of his teeth, but he's had no guarantees on the Wii, which he desperately wants. His friend Remus has one, and James simply must learn to beat him at Wii bowling.

"I'm sorry, Lily," he murmurs.

"I accept your apology," says Lily, tilting her chin delicately towards the ceiling, and that mollifies his mother, but James can tell that she's thinking of a way to get him back. This is what Lily does. She acts like an angel in front of the adults, and stings him when they're alone.

Santa – though James knows that he's not the real Santa – doesn't mention James's bad behaviour when he and Lily are ushered into the grotto. Mercifully, Lily doesn't mention it either, which is what he feared. While James gleefully lists all the things he wants for Christmas, she hovers by the door, watching in silence, then declines to request anything for herself. Instead, she shakes his hand and tells him that her parents have got it all taken care of.

It's a good visit despite her presence. They get a selection box each and go on their way. Everything seems fine. Lily is even nice to him on the drive home and James, like an idiot, allows himself to assume that he's not going to be punished.

But she gets him when they're in his room.

James never wants to go to his room and play with Lily, but he's forced to do it every time she comes over. It's awful; she acts like his babysitter just because she's two months older, as if she thinks he can't survive in a room by himself, though he's managed quite well for eight years, with only a few major injuries. And anyway, they don't even play. She digs out one of his books and curls up in the corner like a tense cobra while he busies himself with something more interesting. One time, he hid all the books to force her to be fun for once, so she cleaned his bedroom as an act of revenge.

This time, she doesn't make a dive for his bookshelf and select the book with the least pictures. Instead, she does a neat pirouette and fixes him with a steely glare.

"You know he wasn't real," she says, hands on her hips. "Don't you?"

"What?"

"That man dressed as Santa."

"I know _that_ ," says James, with a scowl. "He's one of the elves. The real Santa is too busy to come himself."

She scoffs. "No he isn't."

"Yes, he is."

"He _isn't_ ," she sweetly replies. "Because Santa isn't real."

The bottom falls out of James's stomach.

Nay, of his _life_.

"You're lying," he insists, unable to keep the wobble out of his voice. He doesn't want to cry in front of Lily, but if she's telling the truth...

She _can't_ be telling the truth. She's a nasty liar. She's just trying to hurt him.

Is she, though?

A small, unwanted voice niggles in the back of his head. Hasn't he always suspected? Isn't it strange that Mum and Dad can never explain how Santa travels to so many homes in one night, or how reindeer can fly, or how James always gets the toys he wants even when he's been really naughty? Or why last Christmas, when James forced himself to lie awake all night so that he might hear Santa landing on the roof, he never heard a thing, yet his presents were there in the morning?

"I'm not lying. Your parents buy your presents for you," says Lily, as if she can read his mind. "I found out ages ago because I'm a lot more grown up than you."

"You're lying!"

"I'm not. I wasn't going to tell you, but you're too old to believe in Santa now. You look silly."

He's heartbroken. He's wants to cry. Everything he ever believed has come crashing down around his ears, and he feels like a baby, and _stupid_ , if what Lily says is true, and he's much too old to believe.

She has a smug smile on her face, and that makes everything a thousand times worse. His hands clench into fists and he thinks that he'd like to thump her, but he can't hit a girl. Only the worst boys hit girls. He can't hit anyone. He'd feel worse than he does now, and then he really wouldn't get any presents from... from...

"I _hate_ you," he snarls, blinking back tears.

"Good," says Lily, with a toss of her hair. "Don't ever call me stupid again."


	2. now dash away! dash away! dash away all!

**Author's Note:** Well, damn, Jennifer.

As it turns out, I may have been Jenn's Secret Santa but she was also mine, and this morning my sick day was brightened by the arrival of a Jughead Jones beanie AND blanket to snuggle up with. Which made me want to post early for Jenn, but I still want to stick to my Saturday schedule. So. I split chapter 2 into two chapters. This is fine because it was a long chapter.

So I guess this fic is four chapters now. No regrets.

 **chapter 2: now dash away! dash away! dash away all!**

 **Lily, 2011**

Lily is often forced to remind herself that it's worth putting up with this crap for Euphemia.

As it is, she tries to avoid visiting the Potters with her family whenever she can, and devotes a significant amount of guilt to this decision because her fear is that Euphemia will take it personally. It's easier to make excuses, now that she's a month shy of fourteen. She's got friends of her own, not to mention school, and tennis, and performing arts classes at weekends, but she still finds herself lying when she's got a clear schedule, and that makes her feel wretched.

She hopes that Euphemia can't tell, and that her parents don't give the game away with a casual remark – not that she ever tells them anything – because she couldn't stand to hurt her feelings. Euphemia's like a second mother to her. Lily really, truly loves her, and doesn't blame her at all for James. He's a product of nature, not nurture.

Euphemia is a loving, generous woman, but James is a shit. An arrogant, pigheaded little shit, who thinks that just because he's _cute_ or whatever he can...

But Lily's not going to think about that. Her eyes refuse to see what her common sense can, so she ignores what they have to say. A polar bear is beautiful to look at, but get too close and it can rip your face off, or in James Potter's case, drop your plate to the ground as he hands it to you and pretend that it was an accident. He did that last year, got sent to his room, and acted like it was her fault.

Anyway, he's not even that cute. He's still shorter than her.

"Have I told you how Evans broke Christmas?" he's saying to his mate, Sirius. Lily doesn't recognise his face from previous visits, but apparently, he and James have been best pals for ages. Sirius gave her a quick, disapproving once-over when she and her parents walked through the door.

Sirius can piss off, as far as she's concerned.

"Yes," Sirius replies. He looks supremely bored, flipping through Euphemia's Lakeland catalogue. "About a thousand times."

"I didn't deserve it," James continues, in a pained, dramatic way, as if he's referencing a Great Trauma.

"Two thousand."

"I mean, I can't prove it but I think she was probably jealous because I had a better selection box, anyway -"

"Please shut up."

"I still don't understand why anyone would decide to tell an innocent little kid that Santa doesn't exist, for no reason at all. She wanted to ruin my life. That's what Evans does for fun, you know. She ruins lives."

He's trying to get a reaction, Lily knows. James Potter is many things, but subtle is not one of them.

Luckily, she has come prepared with one of her Adrian Mole diaries, and is very good at ignoring the words that tumble out of his idiot mouth. Her parents would freak out if she got mad at James in front of them. They freak out whenever she fails to behave in a ladylike manner, in accordance with her father's 'good old-fashioned' rules. When James acts like a prat, he's 'spirited,' according to Dad. When Lily scowls in public, she's got an attitude problem.

The worst thing about this situation is that Lily could be spending Boxing Day at Mary's sleepover, not stuck at the dining room table with James Potter and his mate while her parents drink wine and laugh it up with Fleamont and Euphemia in the kitchen. Her only consolation is that her awful sister was also forced to come and is more upset than she is, but Petunia is hiding in the under-stairs toilet, crying on the phone to Yvonne about some relationship drama she fabricated to make her love life seem more interesting, so she's no help at all.

"It broke my heart." James is still talking. The mileage he's gotten from this story, several years on, is almost commendable at this point. She can't even remember what he did to make her do it, but contends that it was probably deserved. "And afterwards, when I told my parents, she pretended it was an accident."

Sirius pretends to snore.

If he's bored by his friend's monologue, it's got nothing on the way Lily feels. She's spent countless hours listening to James harangue her over imagined insults. He won't forgive her for 'stealing' his mother's love. He won't forgive her for Algernon, as if she can help that his cat is obsessed with her. Nobody can hold a grudge better than he can. James used to break her things and make fun of her red hair, and she's gotten over that.

She still despises him, of course, but that's because of his constant, open refusal to give her a moment's peace whenever she's in his presence. When a person hates you with as much fervour as James does her, your only option is to hate them back.

Thank goodness for her book. She'll have to hide it in her handbag when her parents come in, but it's here for her now.

"What did you get for Christmas, Evans?" says James.

She focuses steadily on the page.

"Not a new personality, that's for sure."

She's not going to give him the satisfaction.

"I'll tell your parents if you ignore me."

This threat gives her no choice, so she looks up and arranges her features into something resembling civility. His hand jumps to his hair - he's always messing with his hair, though it doesn't need his help, being so naturally inclined towards chaos that it barely makes biological sense - and the triumphant grin on his face is so irritating that she would happily throttle him.

She can't believe that this is the boy about whom she occasionally has confusing, vaguely romantic dreams.

"I got an iPod and some new books," she says, forcing politeness out of her throat despite her baser instincts. "What about you?"

"What books?" asks Sirius sharply.

"Um." This could be part of some plot. One never knows with James. He swapped her Coke for malt vinegar the last time she came over. Whatever he's planning, Sirius is probably in on it. "A few Agatha Christies, the Adrian Mole collection, and then I got a few older books like _Emma_ , and _Frankenstein_ , and -"

"I love _Frankenstein_ ," Sirius interrupts. "Do you read a lot of horror books?"

"I mean, not really, but I wanted to try a couple out."

"It's a great book to start with."

"It's the most famous one written by a woman, and I'm trying to read as many female authors as I can. Dad thought I was too young to read _Frankenstein_ , but my friend Mary bought it for me."

"Why? It's not even scary," Sirius scoffs.

"Yeah, well, my dad still thinks I'm nine-years-old." She glances at the kitchen door to make sure her father isn't hovering nearby. "He bought me the _Twilight_ books for Christmas."

Sirius makes a noise of disgust in the back of his throat.

"That's not even the worst part. The worst part is that he'd already bought me the same books for my last birthday, he'd just forgotten."

"Or he's really into books about pasty saps driving around in Volvos and crying about their emotional problems."

All the while, James has been watching her, and when she laughs – which she can't help – his expression darkens considerably. He probably thinks that she's hatching an insane plan to steal Sirius away. He always suspects her of working against him.

"I got a new football kit for Christmas," he says loudly. "And a bunch of Xbox games, and a phone."

She's too used to this behaviour to be startled by the interruption. "That sounds really nice."

"Nicer than what you got."

It rankles in her soul, especially since she's got the brains to wipe the floor with him. But her parents are in the kitchen.

"Yeah," she lightly agrees. "Probably."

His face twists in disgust. "You're such a liar."

"Pardon?"

"Lily?" calls her mother from the kitchen. "Could you come in here and help set the table?"

"See? This is what I mean, ' _pardon_ ,'" James spits, and leans backwards, tipping his chair towards the wall. She'd love for him to fall over but he won't, because she's not that lucky. "You're sly. You pretend to be all nice and polite when our parents aren't around, but really you're awful."

She blinks at him. "What are you talking about?"

"My mum thinks you're such an angel, but whenever she's not here you try to make me feel thick -"

"I don't try -"

"You do, and if I try to tell her the truth I end up looking like a liar, like when we were kids."

"Is this about that stupid Santa thing again?"

"It's about a lot more than that, but yeah, that's one of the -"

"Oh my god," she groans, her hands jumping to land on either side of her head. "Why can't you ever let _anything_ go?"

"Because," says James, and lurches forward, all four legs of his chair connecting with the floor again. "You never apologised."

"For something I did when I was seven!"

"You were eight, actually. Old enough to know better."

"Lily?" calls her mother again. "Sweetie?"

"There must be something really wrong with you, Evans." James points to his temple. "In your head, if you can act nice around some people and evil around others. Psycho killers act like that. Are you going to murder us all?"

He's a shit.

He's such a horrid, unbearable shit.

Lily's blood is boiling, heat coursing through her skin so swiftly that it might be happening for real, another biological impossibility come to life. She wants to smack him right across the face, send his glasses flying, see an angry red mark upon his cheek.

So she stands up and leaves the room.

"There you are!" cries her mother, and hurries over wearing a harassed expression, her default setting. A glass of wine is dangling perilously from one hand. "Take that jug into the dining room, will you?"

"No, James can do that," says Euphemia from the stove. "Go back inside and relax."

Lily's mother immediately waves away the totally reasonable suggestion that the boy who lives in this house might be called upon to wait on one of his guests. "It's fine, Lily's happy to help."

She's far from happy – in fact, she bloody well agrees that James should be made to get off his arse and do something, for once – but she obediently lifts the heavy glass jug which contains Euphemia's famous Christmas punch, and carries it into the dining room. Sirius has returned to the catalogue, but James has got her book in his hands, and is watching her expectantly.

"Well done," he tells her, smugly. "Aren't you just perfect?"

She hates him. She really hates him. She wishes she could throw the jug in his face.

She could.

She can.

No, she can't. Her father will lose his mind.

But James is such a _shit_.

He said she was sly. Called her a liar. Accused her of pretending to be a good person. And it's Christmas, she savagely recalls. She didn't buy him a present, so why not give him what he wants?

Two things make her decision for her. The first is that James laughs, a maddeningly conceited sound, because he clearly thinks he's beaten her, and she can't bear to be beaten. The second is Sirius, who lifts his head from the magazine and catches her gaze. Her eyes flit down to the jug, settling on the swirling, sticky, saccharine liquid contained within, and when she looks at Sirius again, he's wearing an evil smile that seems to suggest it. Like an unspoken challenge. _Do it. I dare you. I bet you won't._

Now she feels giddily gleeful, so much so that she practically glides across the room despite the weight of the object in her hand. There's a light of curiosity in James's eyes, and he opens his mouth to speak, but never makes it, because she tips the jug forward and pours the whole lot right over his stupid, over-inflated head. A lot of noises seem to rear up around her – James yelping like a startled dog, a stampede coming from the kitchen, Sirius's deafening peal of laughter – but she doesn't stop until every drop is gone. James is drenched, as is the table. Her book is ruined and the Lakeland catalogue, thoroughly waterlogged, falls to the floor with an almighty slap.

" _Lily!_ " cries her father.

The uproar has summoned all of humanity to the dining room en masse. Her father, predictably, has turned redder than his hair. Petunia comes skidding into view from the hall, phone clasped to her ear. Euphemia is stifling a laugh behind her hand. Sirius isn't attempting to stifle anything, but is gasping helplessly for breath.

She sets the jug down on the table.

"What on earth?" says her mother breathlessly. There's a blossoming red wine stain on her blouse.

"He deserved it," Lily explains. "He's a prick."

"Oh my _god_ , Yvonne," says Petunia, and disappears back into the hall, cackling. "You'll never _believe_ what my sister just -"

Her father, who looks as if he's experiencing an aneurysm, points an accusatory finger in her direction. "Young lady -"

"He hurt my feelings," she stubbornly insists. To hell with it. She's already attempted to drown him, so there's nowhere to go from here but up. What is her father going to do, confiscate _Twilight_? He'd be doing her a favour. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Euphemia, but your son is a bully."

Sirius bursts into a fresh wave of laughter.

"A _bully_?" her father repeats, aghast. "You're the one who poured a jug of punch over his head!"

"Well, that's neither here nor there," she retorts.

"This is _amazing_ ," Sirius gasps, and thumps a stunned, silent James hard on the back. "Happy Christmas, mate!"

"Anyway, I'm sorry, but I really don't feel like dinner," Lily continues. "Can I be excused?"

"You most certainly _can't_ -"

"I think that's a good idea," Euphemia interrupts, and holds out a placating hand. Lily's father gapes at her outstretched palm. "Lily, the spare bedroom across from the linen cupboard is made up for you. Why don't you pop upstairs and cool down?"

"She can clean this mess up first!" Dad cries. "Fleamont, Euphemia, I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over her."

"Don't apologise. James can clean up the mess," says Euphemia. James gives a wail of anguish. "I'm absolutely certain that he deserved what he got."

"Euphemia?"

" _Grace_." Euphemia's tone is warning. "You don't know my son like I do."

"Mum!"

"You'll do what your mother tells you," says Fleamont sternly. "And no complaints."

"Go on, Lily," Euphemia instructs, and jerks her head toward the door. "I'll come see you after I've had a word with my son."

Everyone starts talking at once, but Lily has been given an out, and doesn't intend to stay for the conversation. She takes one last, satisfying look at James, staring at her with streaky glasses and hair plastered to his forehead, and flees the room as swiftly as a deer.

 **James, 2011**

His mother is apoplectic when she finds out what he said.

Sirius is the one who tells her, not Lily, as he originally suspects. His mother brings a plate to her room, leaden with steak pie and crisp roast potatoes, and stays in there for thirty minutes, during which time James is forced to decontaminate the dining room before he's allowed to take a shower. It's a sticky, thankless job, and he's rewarded with a ham sandwich and a glass of water.

"No pie for you," says his father, looking at him as if he'd like to kick him up the arse. So that's nice.

Lily's dad argues on James's behalf, for which he should be grateful, but it only serves to annoy him. Why isn't he sticking up for his daughter? Why did he buy her two copies of the same book in one year? It's not like she'd be difficult to buy for, she's always talking about books. Her father could have bought her _Anne of Green Gables_. Lily was talking it about a few weeks ago, said that she'd found the first volume in her grandmother's house, but never got to read the rest. James specifically remembers because she gets so excited when she reads about other girls with red hair, and he'd checked it out, and there are a whole bunch of _Anne of Green Gables_ books. He found the entire boxed-set in Waterstones just last week, on sale for £45. Then he bought it.

He could have given it to Lily, but as he hates her, that might have sent the wrong message. It's hidden in his room under a loose floorboard, alongside a few other things he bought, regretted, and hid for the same reason. The whole process has been such a headache. His mother had him drug-tested because he couldn't tell her where his allowance was going.

James, his sandwich and his water are confined to his room for a really long time, which would normally be fine, but his dad takes his Xbox, Sirius isn't allowed in and Algernon is nowhere to be found. When his mother eventually makes an appearance, he's greatly relieved, until she reveals herself to be majestically enraged.

" _You_ ," she snarls, her voice low and deadly, as if she's casting a curse upon him. "I could kill you."

"Keep refusing to feed me me and I'll die soon enough," he retorts, and nods to the sandwich, which is sitting on his dresser. He elected not to eat it as a form of protest.

"Don't be dramatic," she snaps. "You're lucky I don't starve you for a few days to teach you a lesson."

"I already feel starved."

"I don't care, not after what you said to that poor girl."

"Whatever she told you -"

"It was Sirius, actually."

That hits him like a sucker punch. Betrayed by his best mate, twice in one day. Though Sirius maintains that talking to Lily about books is not a betrayal, it felt like one. Sirius was supposed to be sullen and unfriendly. He wasn't supposed to talk to her, and he certainly wasn't supposed to make her laugh.

"Lily wouldn't tell me what you said," his mum continues, as he has gone temporarily mute. "She was more concerned with apologising for her own actions."

And isn't that just typical of Lily Evans? Apologising for her own behaviour so as to make James look like even more of a villain? He can't explain how refusing to tattle on him plays into this master plan, but he's sure he can make sense out of it later.

"I wasn't trying to upset her."

"You certainly weren't trying to charm her."

"She doesn't care what I say. She hardly listens, most of the time," James argues. This, at least, is entirely true. "I was just winding her up. I didn't expect her to get upset."

"Why, pray tell?" His mother perches on the end of his bed, one eyebrow cocked as if to remind him of his incompetence. He's never been able to raise one at a time.

"Why what?"

"Why were you trying to wind her up?"

"I was - I dunno. I was bored."

"Or jealous," she delicately supplies, tracing a pattern on his bedspread with her fingernail. "Because she was talking to Sirius, and not to you."

James flushes immediately. "I wasn't jealous!"

"Oh, I think you were."

"How the blood - I mean - how would you know?"

"Well, to start with, you never stop talking about her."

"About her crimes against me!"

"And you're always trying to get her attention."

"That's not even -"

"I mean, I knew that you had a crush on her, but I'd hoped you would have behaved like more of a gentleman, and not a wild animal."

Lights explode behind his eyes, and he's so incensed that he tries to leap to his feet, but he's been sitting on his leg and it has fallen asleep, so he only succeeds in rolling sideways like a drunken mule.

"I _don't_ have a crush on her," he hotly protests. "That is madness."

"Then what on earth was that little display in the dining room?"

"That was - I don't know, but it wasn't a crush." His glasses have slid down his nose as a result of his failed attempt to jump off his bed. He pushes them up with one finger and glares at his mother, who is maddeningly smug. "Maybe I _am_ a bully, I dunno, but I _don't_ like Lily and that's the truth."

"Well, here's another truth for you, young man." She points to the wall as if she's trying to puncture a hole in the plaster. "I fully intend to make that girl my daughter-in-law one day, and as you're the only offspring I've managed to eject from my cursed womb, you're the only hope I've got, unless I can somehow adopt Sirius, who seems a better prospect at this point, honestly."

Though he should be terrified by the truth of his mother's insane ambition to marry Lily into the family, James is, unfathomably, more bothered by the idea that she'd rather pair Lily up with Sirius. He doesn't even know how that would work. Setting Sirius on Lily Evans would be like sprinkling salt on an ice cream sundae.

But, like, the worst kind of ice cream. She's the kind of ice cream James hates. Lily isn't cookie dough or double chocolate or mint chocolate chip. Lily is... licorice. Licorice flavoured ice cream.

"Sirius," he loftily begins, unsure of his destination. "Is a confirmed bachelor."

"Sirius is fourteen."

"And I'm thirteen," James reminds her. "Why are you trying to marry me off?"

"Because I'm your mother and I know what's best for you and it will be better for us all in the long run if you let me pick your girlfriends."

"I don't even want -"

"I thought I'd raised you better than this. It's not acceptable or clever to be cruel, especially not to a girl you like, and even _more_ especially, not to a girl like Lily. She is a sweet, kindhearted –"

"No she isn't."

His mother presses her lips together, as if she's holding back a diatribe she's bound to regret, or urging herself not to murder him.

"She is a sweet, kind girl," she repeats, louder and firmer this time. "And her family have been very nice to you, even that idiotic father of hers. There is _no_ reason whatsoever for you to behave like a baboon whenever she's in the house."

A baboon! When James has _never_ shown Lily his bottom. Not since that time - but he was really young then, and anyway that's hardly relevant.

"It was funny when you were children and you used to run around playing tricks on one another, but you're nearly fourteen-years-old. I understand that your hormones are a maelstrom –"

"What's a maelstrom?"

"And I know it's difficult to know what to say to a girl when you've got a crush on -"

"For the last time," he protests, his cheeks hot with embarrassment. "I _don't_ have a crush on her!"

James does _not_ have a crush on Lily. He _hates_ Lily. He always has, he always will, and there isn't a force on earth that could change his mind. She's far too proper, and boring, and obsessed with books to the point where it drives him up the wall. What kind of person reads that much? Every time she visits his house, too, as if there's nothing else she could possibly be doing with her time. There's nothing more infuriating than watching Lily sit there with her nose in some novel, ignoring every attempt he makes to get her to talk to him, or even _look_ at him.

She's _perfect_ , and that's what he hates the most about her. Sweet, faultless Lily, who gets brilliant marks at school and wins tennis tournaments without breaking a sweat. She makes him feel like an idiot, helpless and clumsy and half-panicked, most of the time, like his brain is a janky old computer, running too many programs, overheated and struggling to reboot. And what's truly maddening, what really drives him nuts, is that it makes _no_ sense at all. James is top of his class at school. He's captain of his football team. He's got loads of friends, everyone likes him – his teachers tell him that he's _too_ confident, for crying out loud. Then she turns up at his house, tucks her hair behind her ears and wordlessly knocks it all out of his head.

James has been trying his best, for years, to prove to himself that Lily is not as spectacular as she makes out, but she just gets worse. Better. Smarter. Sweeter.

Prettier.

He's been stewing, sullenly, for about half a minute, while his mother watches in silence, and it occurs to him now that he _really_ doesn't want to carry on this conversation.

"I'll apologise," he murmurs.

His mother cups her hand to her ear. "What was that?"

"I said I'll apologise," he repeats, and his heart's clanging against his chest like a pinball machine, but damned if he's not going to scowl. "On one condition."

"You don't get to give me conditions, James."

"No, it's not - I just need you to leave the room for a minute, and then I'll come out," he explains, and scrubs a hand through his still-damp hair. "And I want you to - to please not mention anything I might be carrying, or that I, just -"

"Is this about the stash of presents you've got hidden under your floorboard?"

"What?!" His eyes expand to the size of planets. "How did _you_ know about that?"

"Because I gave birth to you, and because you're horribly transparent."

"Oh."

"I know about those beers you and Sirius sneaked into his room, too," she continues. "A bottle opener might have been useful, but who am I to tell you two geniuses what to do? Your father was certainly happy to find that you'd warmed up all of his Budweisers."

The world has turned upside down. His best friend is betraying him left, right and centre. His mother knows all of his best concealed secrets, he _still_ doesn't know what beer tastes like, and he might have a crush on his worst...

"I don't -" he begins, and swallows a lump in his throat. "Did you know about this the whole time?"

"Obviously."

"So why did you make me wee in a cup to test for drugs?"

"Oh, _that_ ," she says, and laughs, high and cruel. "I didn't _actually_ have your urine tested, I just did that for a laugh."

"You're evil," he accuses, begrudgingly admiring this prank.

"I know," she replies, with a wide, malicious smile. "Where do you think you got it from?"


	3. nestled all snug in their beds

**Author's Note:** I apologise for the delay. I have had the most awful week in the lead-up to Christmas (getting a mortgage) and I decided I hated this chapter and completely rewrote it.

Anyway, remember in my first author's note, when I said there would be fluff?

Have some fluff.

 **chapter 3: nestled all snug in their beds**

 **New Year's Eve, 2013**

 **Lily**

"Are you alright, love?"

"Yeah, 'course I am."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm great," says Lily, and throws in a toothpaste-advert smile for good measure. "Honestly."

Hovering awkwardly by the kitchen door with a mug of tea clasped between her fingers, her mother smiles, relief evident in her eyes, though she knows that Lily is lying, and Lily knows that she knows it.

Now isn't a good time for a Big Talk, for Lily is exhausted, hungry, and perched on a stepladder while she sticks balloons to the wall, so her mother chose her moment well. Grace's enquiry is nothing but a conversational placeholder, designed to express her concern but not to invite further discussion. Obligation of the day fulfilled. Her mother doesn't want a Big Talk. She never does, lest she stumble across some self-awareness or unearth her own opinion, for a change.

Lily could use a Big Talk, but with a willing participant, not her wary, embarrassed mother, because she's not alright. Neither of them are alright. People keep asking, and in a variety of ways, if they're alright, from Petunia's boyfriend (for the sake of convention) to Mrs. Parker next door (interfering old bag), and they haven't once wavered in their insistence that everything is wonderful, they're so excited, adventures on the horizon, and so on. It's all a crock of bullshit, but it's extremely well-practiced.

"You can have a glass of fizz later, if you like," her mum offers. "I promise I won't tell Dad."

"Petunia will."

"Petunia won't notice."

"Daddy's little princess will make a point to notice."

"Then we'll distract her with something shiny," Grace replies, brushing a lump of salmon mousse from her apron. Lily's mother has a great sense of humour, but tends to keep it buried beneath twenty-two years of marriage to a man who would pitch his tent in a massive sulk if he weren't the funny one. "Or we'll give you some Buck's Fizz and say it's Fanta."

"Ooh, Fanta in a champagne glass. Very posh."

"She'll never know the difference."

The last thing Lily wants is to take her virgin sip of champagne on a night when she feels so decidedly disconnected from festivity. Her mum announced the party with an ugly, forced joviality, as if she'd hit a telethon goal but didn't know what she was raising money for, and couldn't hear the roar of her daughter's silence. Lily doesn't want a party, and not just because she's had to cancel the plans she made with her friends to attend. She doesn't want to navigate her way through a bunch of drunken adults who pat her on the head and tell her that she used to be so small. She doesn't want to celebrate the mess that her father has dropped them in.

What she wants to do is crawl into bed with a lot of something sweet, and lose herself in a million episodes of something that makes her laugh and requires no thought and doesn't matter at all.

But she can't. She's on decorating duty. And she behaves herself in company, always.

To spare her mum's feelings, she allows herself a smile, and tears a strip of tape from the roll that dangles on her wrist. "Perhaps we should get her drunk first? Then she'll be too ashamed of herself to report a thing to Dad."

"I doubt she'll drink more than a glass with Vernon watching."

"I wish he didn't know where we live."

"I wish he didn't know Petunia."

"Maybe he'll be late because he stopped at every fast food restaurant on the way here."

Grace snorts, and points her mug of tea in Lily's direction. "That was low humour, daughter mine."

"You laughed, though."

"I did," she sighs. "How bad must a man be before we can make fun of his looks and not be horrible people ourselves?"

"Vernon bad," Lily reminds her. "He's a literal benchmark."

"Please make better choices than your sister when you start dating, Lil."

"A sock puppet would be a better choice."

"Well, they can be a man, a woman or a sock – I don't care, as long as they're not a shit."

"Not a shit, got it." Lily affixes a silver balloon, the last to the bunch, at one end of a colourful banner. It might tear the paint from the wall when she takes it down tomorrow. "Shouldn't be difficult to remember. Luckily, it eliminates about half of the male race."

"Speaking of boys who _aren't_ shits," says Grace, and takes a long, luxuriant mouthful of tea. "Euphemia should be here soon."

Lily colours nicely, and hops down from the ladder.

"No offence," she says, pushing her hair out of her face. "But Euphemia's a bit too old for me."

Her mother quirks an eyebrow. "A certain someone wanted to see you especially."

Lily knows what she means – it would take a person of Vernon's limited capabilities to miss Grace's anvil-sized hints – but she pointedly ignores it. If her mum was as fond of a certain someone as she claims, she wouldn't be complicit in completely obliterating any chance Lily has of Making Something Happen, which was The Plan, right up until her father dropped a bomb on their life. "Is she staying overnight?"

"Nah, she'll drive back later."

"Is Fleamont coming?"

"He's got a cold, so he's staying home."

"That's a shame," says Lily lightly. She's not going to give her mother the satisfaction of asking. "I would have liked to see them both before we leave."

"Just Fleamont and Euphemia?"

She fixes her mum with a glare that's worthy of a moody teenager. _"Mother."_

"What?"

"You know what."

"I'm sure I don't have a clue what you mean," says Grace, the picture of innocence. "But he _is_ coming, in case you were wondering."

"I don't care either way," Lily retorts, to hide the fact that she does.

She cares a lot, in fact.

There's just not much point in it now.

 **James**

"Be extra nice to Lily when we get there," says Euphemia. "She's going through a difficult time."

His mother always tells him to be nice, a totally unnecessary instruction from years back that she hasn't yet remembered to forget. While relations with Lily may have been strained in the past, James does not need to be told to be nice. He's _always_ nice to Lily. In fact, he's such a pathetic, infatuated fool that he'd cheerfully slice a vein for Lily and ask her if she was okay while he bled out on the floor.

He's feeling lovelorn and agonised today, emotions which require an outlet, so he tells his mother as much, despite his secret resolve to keep his feelings under wraps. Euphemia lives to embarrass him and doesn't deserve his confidence, but James is utterly crap at secrets. "Don't tell Mum," he'll say to Algernon, then go and tell her himself.

"You bloody drama queen," his mum sighs. Behind her cat-eye sunglasses, which she doesn't even _need_ because the outside world is morosely grey, James can tell that she's rolling her eyes. She only wears her shades to look glamourous. "I didn't raise you to act like this."

"You did, actually."

"That's right, I did," she agrees. "Tell me, in what situation would you be required to pop a vein for her?"

"If a masked murderer broke into our house and held a gun to her head -"

"You and Lily don't share a house."

"Right, but we're married in this scenario."

"Ah." Euphemia nods, and slings the Mercedes around a corner with flagrant disregard for road safety regulations. "How silly of me. Do carry on."

"So, anyway, this masked killer is holding a gun to her head, and I'm frozen in terror because I don't want him to shoot but also because our children are sleeping upstairs, but _then_ he says, 'I'll let her live if you sacrifice yourself,' and I agree to do it because, y'know, I love her -"

"Of course."

"But right before I do, Lily says something cool like, 'welcome to the party, pal,' and karate-chops the guy in the back of the head, which knocks him unconscious, and I pin him to the ground and perform a citizen's arrest."

Of all the fantasies James has concocted as an adolescent (starring Lily Evans, co-starring, directed and written by himself), the masked intruder is the tamest in terms of lewd content due to the inevitable police presence after they defeat the bloke, not to mention the children sleeping upstairs. He and dream Lily could hardly consummate their love while their would-be killer is being dragged to the station, despite the best efforts of his imagination to make it work. This makes it the safest dream to share with his mum, though it _does_ get sexy later, provided they can get the kids back to sleep. He thinks Lily would be proud of his diligence in planning for such events, should he ever find the bottle to tell her.

"I have questions," says Euphemia.

"That's all I'm telling you."

"I noticed that you never actually harm yourself during this strange horror situation."

"No," James admits. "But I would, if I weren't so sure that Lily could _definitely_ karate-chop a home invader."

"Does she karate-chop many people?"

"No, but she's got a wicked tennis serve."

"And that's the same thing, is it?"

"You've been to her matches," says James simply, tugging on a strand of hair that falls over his forehead. "She almost always wins."

When Lily doesn't win a match, it's usually a close loss, which is no surprise because she's utterly brilliant. James used to hate that about her, now he just wants to bask in the unsurpassed glory of it all, catching rays from her sunshine whenever he can. And ogling her legs in her tennis whites, but that's a baser urge he can't control, just like he can't control the stirrings of anticipation that whirl around inside him because he knows he's only minutes away from her house, or the feeling of misery that wound itself around his heart and squeezed when his mother told him her news, or the way it all swirls together in a terrible cocktail.

"Do they have tennis in Ireland?" he asks his mother.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

"I still don't understand why they'd go there. Everything they need is here already."

"Because Andrew can't quit his job just to keep _you_ happy," says Euphemia sharply. "Nor me, for that matter. Nor his own wife."

His eyebrows jump towards his hairline. "What?"

"Never mind." She clucks her tongue and presses her lips together, which is a sure sign that she's holding something back. "That's just how it is, James. We offered Grace more money to keep her with Sleekeazy's, but they made their decision as a family, so we have to support them."

James doesn't answer, but stares moodily out of the window, counting the number of houses that have Christmas lights stung up outside. Outdoor Christmas lights are a good indicator of which families are fun and which families are stridently boring. He likes the multi-coloured type best, particularly the ones that flash wildly on and off like a skittish discotheque and come complete with a huge, inflatable Santa and other accompaniments. Those families are up for a laugh. Those families would never emigrate, and if they did, they wouldn't take Lily with them.

"You can still tell her how you feel, sweetheart," says Euphemia, after a moment.

"Can't."

"Why not, when you've got your fancy phones and all those social media sites?"

"I'd never see her, would I?"

"But you're almost old enough to fly alone, I bet they'd be happy for you to pop over and see her, and we'll pay for her to come and visit."

His mum loves Lily too. He knows the whole story. She took care of her for a full month after she was born – while Grace was ill in hospital and Andrew was too busy with work to have her full-time and James was still kicking away in her belly – and the bond they formed was so strong that handing Lily back to her mother sent Euphemia into a depression that only her son's arrival, a few short weeks later, could lift. He knows that he and Lily were great pals as babies, though he can't remember it, because he's seen all the photos and gotten the info from his parents. Before her family's first move to Ireland when she was three, Lily used to put her arms around his neck and press kisses to his face. He used to cry when her parents took her home, and begged for her for weeks when she left for good. The irony is painful.

He once considered writing it down, their little history, nice and neat and proper, and giving it to Lily as a gift. He thought it would be dead romantic because she loves books and he loves _her_ , and he's good at art and could have designed a brilliant cover, only Sirius said it was a pathetic idea and thumped the back of his head, and anyway, he'd have to tell her how he feels to give her a gift like that, and there's not much point to that now.

"I'm not telling her," he insists. "She'll find a boyfriend in Ireland in five minutes. I can't compete with the accents over there."

"Pfft, accents," his mother scoffs. "You may want to wallow in misery, but I think Lily likes you, and I think it would make her happy to hear what you've got to say."

"Got nothing to say," he replies, and folds his arms across his chest.

 **Lily**

Lily knew she had feelings for James from the moment he sketched a picture of Princess Leia inside her 15th birthday card.

Her crush on him predates her birthday, she's sure, but it was _that_ \- the seemingly innocuous act of giving her a card, upon which he had expended effort - which sent her into a downward spiral of fluttering butterflies and hastily scrawled renditions of _Lily Potter_ on bits of scrap paper, that she shamefacedly threw in the bin because she's _not_ that girl – except when she's around him, then she doesn't know who she is.

The ironic thing is that she never found it hard to be herself around him before she knew she fancied him and stopped knowing how to act.

That's a bitch to deal with.

To live up to the example set by Princess Leia and other feminist icons, Lily tries to be brave whenever she can, and while she often feels she succeeds, being honest about her feelings is not her forte. She's so used to keeping them bottled that it seems unnatural to set them free, and then there's an inevitable repercussion to contend with. The last thing she wants to do is move to Ireland and never see James Potter again, but she's not sure which would be worse - leaving him behind with the sting of rejection to mar her memory, or the knowledge that he feels the same way, and they can't do anything about it.

He's so _cute_ , though, when he and his mum arrive, shivering in his thin hoodie as he steps out of the car because, being James, he forgot to bring a coat, and Lily honesty considers telling him, but telling him depends upon getting a moment alone, and that doesn't happen. They're stuck with Petunia and Vernon for hours, roped into a painful game of Monopoly - Vernon's favourite, likely owing to his love of stepping on other people to succeed - until the other guests arrive, and despite Lily's prior belief that she and James will be the only teenagers there, Mel brings her daughter, and Bethany latches onto James like a bloodthirsty leech.

Lily tries her best to keep up appearances but by 8pm, a combination of things - Bethany's blatant flirting, her anger towards her mother and Vernon's opinions on gay marriage - spur her to escape the house, which she cleverly does by offering to order pizzas for everyone.

It's technically not a lie, she thinks, when she slips out of the house unnoticed and trundles off into the night. Just because her mother thinks she went upstairs to call the restaurant and arrange for a delivery. Lily can't help that. She didn't specify how she'd _get_ the pizza, and it's her mum's own fault if she's mistaken.

Santino's is only a few minutes away, and the walk is brightly lit, but Lily keeps her keys clutched in her hand, just in case. It's a cold night, bitter cold, the kind that creeps beneath layers of clothing and wraps around bones like spandex despite her coat and gloves, and she's shivering by the time she steps across the threshold and into the dimly-lit café, warmth from the ancient space heater blasting her in the face. Her trainers squeak on the sticky linoleum floor.

"Hey," she says to Dan, the owner's son, who has been 'taking a break from uni' for the past three years and is, perhaps, the only person in Cokeworth sadder than her tonight. She yanks out her earbuds and waves at him. "Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year," says Dan, who has sagged against the counter. "Why aren't you out having fun?"

"Because I'm spending the night with my family."

"Ah."

"Busy?"

"Not really." Dan shrugs. "Closing early tonight."

"Going to go out and get trashed, are you?"

"I'm going to go home and watch _Midsomer Murders_ until I fall asleep, unless you fancy going for a drink."

"I'm still fifteen, Dan."

"Then remind me to ask again in three years," he says, sliding a laminated menu across the counter, and Lily's too sick at heart to tell him that she won't be here in three years. Saying it makes it real. She's not ready for it to be real.

She crosses the distance between door and counter and lays her gloved hands on the menu, though she already knows what to order, and the door is pushed open behind her.

"There you are," says James.

Lily whips around at the sound of his voice, a shamefully telling thing, and it's him, sure enough. He must be colder than she is with only that hoodie to guard him against the chill – he is, his teeth are chattering – but there he is, nonetheless. And Bethany's not with him.

Her heart soars, and catches, like a chained bird – only allowed to fly so far because she's _moving away_ and will probably never see him again.

"What are you doing here?"

"I went looking for you, but you'd gone, so I knew you must have come here," he explains, and yanks his hood down. "And it's dark, and there might be drunks hanging around, so…"

"So, what, you followed me?"

"I didn't _follow_ you!" he yelps, looking alarmed. His ears are practically purple with the cold. "Not in, like, a creepy way. I mean, I was pretty sure it was you up ahead, but I didn't want to run up to you in the dark."

"In case it wasn't me?"

"In case it _was_ you and you punched me in the face."

That pulls a brief laugh from the depths of her, despite her efforts to remain stoic. The girl who stubbornly refused to acknowledge James Potter's existence is another Lily from another time, and the wide, jagged-edged chasm between them has become a far prettier thing in recent years, but their newfound camaraderie means nothing in the face of how she feels. No matter how many times she tells herself she'll be sweet and sexy and flirtatious, it never works out that way. She doesn't _know_ how to be sexy and flirtatious, and so she relies on the one thing she knows to be a constant, her wit, which inevitably makes her seem flippant and uncaring, which she isn't – _god_ , she isn't – she cares about him so much that she's almost ashamed of it.

"I didn't realise you were so protective."

"Neither did I, but I guess I am."

"Your hair's gone all flat."

"Lies," James retorts – quite correctly, as his hair is its usual whirlwind, and beautifully fluffy today – but ruffles it up anyway. "I feel like a bloody icicle."

Being a healthy, hormone-ridden teen with two functioning eyes and a rapidly expanding interest in whatever James is hiding under that hoodie, Lily is genuinely concerned for him, which manifests itself as a snide, "Beach ready, are you?"

Smashing, she thinks. Pretend not to care about his inevitable pneumonia, you hard-hearted cow. That'll endear you. Perhaps you'll end up married.

"I'm brilliant, thanks."

"How did you forget to bring your coat in his weather?" she asks, trying again. Now she sounds like a nagging spouse. Even better. Divorce on the cards already, and they're not yet sixteen.

"I didn't _forget_ ," James weakly protests. "I just didn't think we'd be going outside."

"What about the fireworks later?"

"I forgot about them."

"Didn't you _bring_ the fireworks?"

"Technically, it was Mum's job to pack the fireworks. She put me in charge of hummus and gifts."

"I didn't see any hummus?"

"Forgot that too."

"And the gifts?"

James carefully avoids her gaze, instead sharing a shifty, shamefaced look of mutual understanding with Dan, who Lily has forgotten all about. "Have you already ordered?"

She starts to laugh. "You forgot the presents, didn't you?"

"I didn't!"

"You bloody did!"

"I remembered the presents. A present. I remembered one present."

"Just one?" She folds her arms across her chest and cocks an eyebrow at him. "My mum's?"

James shakes his head, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet to stave off the onset of rigor mortis. His expression is pained. "Yours."

"Mine?"

"Yes, but Mum's already had a go at me, so you don't need to make a big thing out of it."

Lily's cheeks do a stellar job of heating the rest of her body while her brain whizzes crazily through several variations of What That Could Mean, if it Means Anything at All, and if she wants it to mean anything or not. She knows she shouldn't want. That's clean and easy, and fairer to James, assuming he feels the same way, which he probably doesn't. He bloody well despised her for years, until she dunked his mother's rum punch on his head a couple of years ago, an act of rebellion that appealed to his sense of mischief, and he's been unerringly sweet to her ever since, though that could all be Euphemia's doing.

Still, he came outside without a coat to make sure she was safe, and that's…

"This is James," she tells Dan, turning back around. "He's –"

"Your boyfriend," says Dan flatly.

"Not necessarily," she replies, her face glowing like a string of Christmas lights.

"I'm just some bloke who follows her around," says James, coming to stand next to her. "She throws me scraps of bread to keep me from starving."

"Er," says Dan.

"He's my friend," says Lily, with a snort, and pats James awkwardly on the arm. "He takes the piss out of everyone, don't mind him. Can we get a large veggie classic with olives –"

"You mum said no olives," James reminds her.

"With _extra_ olives," she savagely continues. "And a large mighty meaty – can you go ahead and throw olives on that, too? And a tub of ice cream, I think." She looks at James, who has tucked his hands into his hoodie sleeves to keep them warm. "Do you want ice cream?"

"I do if you do."

"My mum is paying, so we might as well." She pulls off a glove and points to the dessert section on the menu. "What's your favourite kind?"

"Easy," says James. "Licorice."

"Yeah, okay," she says dryly. "I'm sure."

"I'm serious!"

"I've known you for most of my life, and I've _never_ seen you eating licorice ice cream."

"Well, I used to think I hated it when we were kids," he explains, grinning. "But then I realised that I love it more than anything."

She stares flatly at his smiling face. He looks as if he's just remembered something amusing. "Licorice ice cream?"

"That is _exactly_ the thing that I love and nothing else."

"You're taking the piss."

"I'm not!"

"Since when have you ever eaten anything but double chocolate?"

"I dunno, it just happened one day," he says, and rakes through his hair with his fingers. "But I'll have whatever you're having, honestly."

Lily laughs, though she's not sure what at, or why this is making her nervous. "I mean, I'd get you licorice but they're not going to stock it."

"I know."

"Because, you weirdo, no restaurant in their right mind would have licorice ice cream."

"Thanks for the compliment."

She shoves him, for want of anything better to do. "Well, I'm getting cookie dough, okay?"

"Anything you want is okay with me."

"Alright," she agrees, and gives Dan an apologetic smile. "Can we get a tub of cookie dough? And, er, can you scratch the olives from both pizzas, please? I was just having a moment."

Dan repeats their orders and takes them to the kitchen with far greater haste than usual.

"He fancies you," says James darkly, once he's out of earshot.

"He doesn't," she counters, though James is perfectly correct. "You think everyone fancies me."

"Because everyone does, except for Sirius."

"Shut up," she retorts. "Bethany fancies you."

"So what? I wanted to hang out with _you_ , not her, but you ran off into the night."

"Oh," she says, very lightly. "So you're not into her?"

"I wouldn't have run after another girl if I was, would I?" He leans backward against the counter, staring at his feet. "Are you alright, Evans?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Er, because you ran off into the night, which is the kind of dramatic thing I'd do?" he reminds her. "And because you're obviously not alright?"

"Says who?"

James's response is a sideways glance and two raised brows, because she's let him see too much of herself to fool him like she's fooled her parents, or because he wants to know and they don't. Because he came outside without a coat to keep her safe, and her mother probably hasn't noticed her absence.

She hates how much she's going to miss this stupid, beautiful boy. His glasses always sit a little crooked on his face, and his smile makes her hurt in a really good way, and he's so tall now. She used to be the tall one, but now he dwarfs her.

"Oh, _fine_ ," she sighs, and mirrors his stance, slouched against the counter, her elbow brushing against his. "Where should I start?"

"At the beginning?"

"That's easy enough. Let's see…" She tilts her head up and stares at the ceiling. "I've got a father who secretly applied for a transfer back to Dublin and didn't tell my mum until he'd already accepted the job -"

"He _what?!"_

"Yup," she stonily replies. "Even though he promised her _eight years ago_ when we first moved back to Surrey that he wouldn't transfer again until Petunia and I had _both_ finished school, so that's pretty shit, since I'm right in the middle of an exam year and now I have to move to a country with a completely different school system, and a completely difficult curriculum, and – oh – that's pretty much fucked with my dream of going to uni in Edinburgh, but it's not like my dad cares because he's stuck in the fifties and probably wants me to marry some rich potato farmer – which is a cliché, I know, but whatever, he'd be happy if I never had a career because he wants me to be just like Petunia. Or just like my mum – you know she doesn't even _want_ to move?"

The pitch of her voice is higher than she would like, and her eyes are starting to sting, and this is not what she wants. There is a time and a place for crying, and that's not a space that James should occupy. That's not a thing she should do in public.

"I sort of –" James begins. "I mean, my mum sort of hinted at it, but she didn't tell me that your dad had done that."

"Because she doesn't know, because they told everyone that it was a surprise transfer, because my dad's a lying shit who has to look good in front of everyone," she savagely continues, blinking at a mildewed spot above her head. "And, like, honestly, now that he's over there setting up the new house, Mum is in a better mood than I've seen her in years just because _he's_ not around, but she couldn't be bothered to argue when he told her they were moving because she _never_ does. She just _agrees_ with him and lets him have his way, all the fucking time."

"Lily –"

"So now she's been mooching around the house, asking me fifty times a day if I'm okay, except she doesn't actually want to know. She just asks to ask because she feels guilty, because she couldn't be bothered to –"

Her breath catches. She's going to cry. She's going to cry in a small, filthy pizza parlour, in front of James and in front of Dan, who failed out of university and consistently asks her out even though she's underage, but who she'd face a hundred times more if it meant she didn't have to leave.

" _Ugh_ ," she groans. "I hate this."

"It's alright," says James quietly. "Your mum –"

"I know I'm being a brat."

"You aren't."

"I am, though. It's not like anyone's dying."

"But she should have stuck up for you."

"She didn't even try." The words are pushed out of her body. She's welling up – the ceiling becomes nothing more than a greyish blur before her eyes – and her voice is rising tellingly with every syllable. "She can't even stick up for _herself_. And everyone – everyone keeps asking me if I'm fine and I keep saying I am but I'm not fine. I'm _not_ fine. I feel like – like I'm losing _everything_."

There's a lump, hard and painful, in her throat, expanding with a mass of tears she's keeping at bay, and that isn't fair either, that she should be punished for trying not to cry. She feels foolish, standing there in an open forum without anything to hide behind. Exposed. Weak. Pathetic. Selfish.

"I don't know what to say," says James. His shoulder brushes against hers. "I'm really sorry."

There's no hope for her eyes, so she wipes them and ruins her mascara in the process, but at least she can see him. He looks genuinely concerned, watching her intently, with none of his usual mischief, and she's reminded, again, that he came outside without a coat just to keep her safe. That he must care. That it can't all be his mother.

The lump in her throat pulses harder. She hopes that nobody else walks in.

"No, _I'm_ sorry," she gasps, and scrubs the palm of her hand against her sodden cheek. "I shouldn't cry, it's just – my friends, and school, and I had all these plans – and –"

"I know what you're like with plans."

An ugly little laugh bubbles up amongst her tears and vanishes as quickly as it came. "You shit," she accuses, dabbing at her face.

"I'm sorry," he replies, with a half-smile. "What can I do to make you feel better?"

She shakes her head. "It's fine, you can't –"

"I can tell Bethany that she smells," he suggests, which makes her snort, and hastily wipe her nose with her sleeve. "I could puncture Vernon – no? Okay, I could fill your mum's bed with olives?"

Another choked, painful laugh, but more crying. A lot more crying. She's sure that Dan has heard and is hiding in the kitchen.

"Tell you what," he suggests. "We're staying the night now because Mum is drunk, so we can hide in your room and watch _Star Wars_ all night."

"That sounds nice," she agrees, and sniffs. "I'm going to miss you, you arse."

"Good, because I'll miss you too."

"I'm really sorry for crying."

"Please stop saying you're sorry," he pleads, and holds out his arms. "Do you, er, want a hug?"

"No," she says. "I'm fine. It's fine."

But she hugs him anyway.


	4. what to my wondering eyes should appear

**Author's Note:** I can't BELIEVE I'm doing this but chapter 4 grew and grew and GREW and became this huge thing, but there are ending scenes that need pruning so I'm not happy to post it all now. HOWEVER, the reception to this story has been lovely and I promised my girl Jenn an update soon, so I've split yet another chapter in two, making this 4/5.

I stuffed this chapter with so much fluff, it's like a goddamn pillow. I hope it makes up for how late and terrible I am.

 **chapter 4: what to my wondering eyes should appear**

 **2015**

 **James**

Seven hundred and nineteen days have passed since the last time he saw her.

That amounts, in other words, to a year, eleven months, and twenty days. It amounts to two birthdays, two summers, one Christmas, two football trophies, at least twenty Algernon-related injuries, and one short-lived relationship with a girl named Isabella, who deserved a lot more than the little James could give her.

He takes full responsibility for that mess. Izzy loved him, but he loved someone else, and by all accounts he never should have tried to pretend it wasn't true. Lesson learned. He'll do better next time, he hopes. Everything hinges on next time.

A lot has changed since the day he said goodbye to Lily Evans and drove away in his mother's car, wretched and convinced that he'd never see or speak to her again because to believe otherwise would have been to set himself up for heartache. He has grown another few inches, his shoulders have filled out, he's started reading for fun and he's gained a brother – in bond if not in blood – through Sirius, who sleeps in the bedroom next door and makes every day a grand old adventure.

He's learned that his worries were unfounded, and that Lily really meant it when she swore she'd keep in touch. That the strip of sea between them served to bridge their gaps, not drive them apart. That he's better for her influence, and that she's happier for his friendship. That he's in love with a girl, for real this time, and just how terrifying that is.

Today, day seven hundred and twenty, he finds himself so excited that he can barely sit still. He fidgets. He stands up and sits back down, then stands again, and moves to the front window to stare and stare and question the passage of time. And he talks. He can't _stop_ talking. His mother threatens to pin him down and stuff a bag of sprouts in his mouth. His father leaves the house and drives to the market for a bit of peace. Sirius throws a book at his head. Even Algernon throws him a disgusted glare and retreats to the fat cushion in the hall.

James doesn't care what they think. Today is day seven hundred and twenty. Only one thing matters today.

Lily's coming back.

 **Lily**

Goosebumps tingle on her skin when their car approaches the house.

Lily remembers every detail, just as it was before, like a colour photo seared across the back of her eyes. Nothing has changed in the present. Not the thick, grey pillars that stand sentinel at the gate, not the sweeping, pebbled drive, not even the little fishpond, though James said they had to get rid of the fish because Algernon kept plucking them out for his tea. The Christmas lights are the same lights. The fat, inflatable Santa that waves from the roof is the same one who waved her goodbye last time she came. The house feels like an old friend.

Like it waited for her to come home.

"This is all very fancy," says Mary, from her throne in the back.

"I love this house," Grace sighs. "So many happy memories."

Lily says nothing. She cannot speak but she might sing. She feels as if she could fly.

Their rusting little Fiat – bought on the cheap when they came back to Surrey and probably close to death already, but Lily loves it more than every fancy car her father ever owned – pulls up in the drive, scattering pebbles with a familiar crunch, and the engine hasn't yet stopped but he's at the door. There. The love of her life. Real as day.

Within her grasp. _Finally._

She unbuckles her seatbelt and flings the door open, ignoring Mary, who complains about the child-lock in the back seat. They couldn't figure out how to turn it off, three fine, independent women that they are. Lily was supposed to let her out, but she's waited almost two years for today. Mary can wait for five minutes.

"Lily, the bags!" her mum cries, but it's too late, she's flown. Out of the car, across the drive, and dashing up the steps towards him. Finally, finally, finally.

She throws her arms around his neck, and everything's alright again.

 **James**

She's so close that her breath is tickling his ear.

James is carrying her full weight in his arms – not that she's heavy, and he wouldn't care if she was – because he lifted her clean off her feet, overwhelmed by the sight of her, and how she smells and how she feels and the fact that she's even here at all. All of her at once is an awful lot for a poor, besotted fool like him to take.

"It's you," he says.

"It's me."

"Better be for good this time."

She laughs. "Just try getting rid of me."

She doesn't know that he's in love with her – with her mind, and her sense of right and wrong, and the things that she says and the thoughts that she shares and the things he's learned that encompass who she is – but it was easier to hide behind a screen, when he had the time to reason out his replies. He can't hide the way his heart beats, or his body heats, or the sound that escapes him when she draws back her head and presses her lips to his cheek. He can't hide that he _wants_ her, that the pull he felt before has not been diminished by a distance of land and water and time.

Heartbreakingly, she pulls away, though his dramatic little heart could break for less where she's concerned. She's rosy-cheeked and gorgeous in her fluffy Christmas jumper, winter sun gleaming in her fiery hair. Her eyes are a brighter green than he remembered.

"I'm sorry for almost crushing you to death," she tells him, pushing her hair off her face. Her eyes are raking him over and it makes him feel exposed. _"Wow."_

"Wow?"

"You look great."

"Thanks," he replies, and forgets whatever it was he'd practiced. His heart is straining to squeeze between his ribs and escape him. "It's all the vegetables – Mum was right about them all along."

"Did you get taller? You're _so_ tall, I feel like I had to jump to reach you. And you're _shaving_ now?" She doesn't wait for him to answer, but cups his face in her hand, her thumb tracing a path between his cheek and his jawline. "Oh god, you're _actually_ shaving. You're a man."

He's sure she can feel the blood rush to meet her fingers. "Almost."

"Almost," she agrees, smiling. "I missed you so much, James."

"And I –"

"Oi!" Another girl, taller than Lily with glossy brown hair and bright, merry eyes, comes bounding up the steps. She comes to a halt beside Lily and lays a gentle punch on her arm. "Thanks for letting me out of the car!"

James knows Mary from a bunch of social media sites that he and Lily follow one another on – in fact, he even added her as a friend on Facebook – but he could have waited a couple more minutes to meet her in person.

"Hi, Mary," he says, with a small wave.

"Hey!" says Mary brightly. "Nice to finally meet the real you, non-thumbnail you."

"Nice to meet you, too."

"And listen, thanks so much for letting me stay for Christmas. You've done me a real solid."

"Oh, thank my mum, not me. The cat has more say around here than I do," he says, then hastily adds. "Though, obviously, I wanted you to come too."

"Mary picked me over skiing in the Alps with her parents," says Lily proudly.

"Well, I've only just got this one back," Mary explains. She links her arm through Lily's. "And I just can't bear to be parted from her."

"Works for me. I get to spend Christmas with my best friend _and_ my best friend."

"Sirius will be thrilled," says James.

Lily cocks her eyebrow at him. "You know I meant you, James."

"I stand corrected. Sirius will be mildly disappointed."

"Sirius is the sexy long-haired friend, right?" says Mary.

"What?"

"I Facebook stalked him," she tells James. "Had to. Lily doesn't tell me anything. She didn't even tell me how sexy _you_ are."

Discomfited, James blinks at her. "Um?"

"I'm _kidding!"_ she cries, with a barking laugh. "She's told me about fifty times."

"Mary!"Lily squeals, dropping her arm. "I did _not!"_

"You did!"

"I told you he was handsome."

"Which equates to?"

James doesn't even have a moment to absorb the fact that Lily thinks he's handsome before somebody screams behind him, and he feels himself barrelled aside by the unstoppable force that is his mother.

"Lily!" she shrieks, and catches her in a big, twirling hug. There are other words, but they're an incomprehensible blur because the sight of her starry-eyed girl has brought Euphemia to tears. Then Lily's mum darts up the steps, leaving the bags in a heap by the car, and the three of them collide in a tangle of arms and weeping and screams that may break the sound barrier.

He's been outdone by his own mother.

 **Lily**

Finding Sirius in the room that she and Mary are sharing, stretched provocatively across the bed in only his bathrobe, is a little surprising.

"Afternoon, ladies," he says, with a leering grin. His elbow is resting on one of the little chocolates Euphemia left on their pillows. "Care to hop on the welcome wagon?"

Lily responds by throwing her rucksack at his head, her years of tennis training ensuring that she hits her mark.

"Ow!" he cries, and rolls backwards, squashing the rest of the chocolates, marble-white legs flying into the air. His robe falls open, revealing – to Lily's relief – a pair of black boxer shorts. "Christ, woman! Can't you take a joke?"

"Any woman who actually wants to hop on your welcome wagon _must_ be capable of taking a joke," she scathingly replies. Normally, she'd spare a bit more time for his antics – she really likes Sirius, and feels for him the kind of protective, familial affection she wishes she could feel for her own sister – but her heart is racing nineteen-to-dozen and she needs a moment to collect herself.

"I can take a joke," says Mary saucily.

Lily rolls her eyes to the heavens. "Mother of god. Now you've got her going. Is this why you couldn't come downstairs and say hello to us?"

He grins, his bravado undiminished, even with one hand clamped to his eye. "Didn't want to interrupt you and James."

A hot blush sweeps up to her forehead. "Don't even _start_ –"

"Start what?" he says sweetly. "I hope you've come to make a man out of him."

"Right." She starts forward, takes hold of his arm and pulls. "Out."

"You know he's been saving himself for you –"

"Out."

Sirius moves willingly along with her, scrambling to his feet when he reaches the foot of the bed, which was beautifully made, but is now a crumpled mess. "Have a heart, Evans. It's Christmas."

"Consider my not killing you a gesture of my goodwill," she grunts. Mary jumps aside when they reach the door. "Get out, Sirius."

"Even a quick knuckle buster? He's not fussy."

"Out."

"You're no fun."

"Out!" she cries, and shuts the door in his face. Then she leans backwards against the wood and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"You alright?" says Mary.

"I don't know," she replies, bringing her hands up to her chest. She feels hot all over. "My heart, Mary."

"Is it beating really fast?"

She nods. "Am I all red in the face?"

"A little, but not so you'd notice."

"Enough for _you_ to notice."

"Because you asked me to," Mary counters. She drops her own bag on the floor and falls backwards, flopping into the middle of the bed. "This room is well lush, you know."

Lily is barely paying attention because her head and her heart and her every nerve-ending is full of _him._ "I shouldn't have been so forward. Should I? It felt right, but I don't know."

"What?"

"With James," she explains. "I was all over him, which I really didn't want to do because I have no idea how he feels, but it was like I couldn't stop myself, he was just _there_ and he's so…"

"Into you?"

"You don't know that."

"Except that I _do_ , because his hot friend just told us, and like, you basically Gone with the Winded yourself into his arms and he was well chuffed."

A sound, somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, escapes Lily's chest. "I really love him."

"I know, love," says Mary softly. "Come and lie down. Bed makes everything better."

Like an obedient lamb, she slinks to the bed and lies down next to Mary, who pets her hair in soft, soothing strokes.

It's not just that he's sexy – and he is, so perfectly, utterly _everything_ she can't resist – and that she wants to throw him against a wall and kiss him until she's breathless, or rake her fingers through his beautiful hair, or elicit from him sounds she's only imagined. It's not just that, and that's a lot, because her body hasn't wanted like she wants him, not with anyone else.

It's that he makes her laugh until she cries. It's that he's so sweet, and in the same breath so stubborn. It's his over-the-top reactions to things that don't even matter, or the way he suspects his cat of thwarting him, or invents bizarre, imagined scenarios that almost always end with the villain getting a karate chop to the head. It's that he kept her sane for two years, always a text away no matter the day, no matter what was wrong, no matter what he had to drop to make time for her. That he's become her best friend. That she's become so much more open with herself and with other people, and so much of that is down to him.

"I just wish I knew how he felt," she says quietly. "I mean, either way, I could move forward, but not knowing is messing me up."

"Lil, we're all cooped up here together for the next ten days, and your mum said we can drink," says Mary flatly.

"Meaning?"

"You two are gonna bone."

 _"Mary!"_

"What?" says Mary, with a dry, dirty laugh. "We're teenagers. What else are we gonna do?"

 **James**

"And we actually had a half-decent conversation, for once," Lily is saying, and pulls the sleeve of his sweatshirt – James told her it was too big, but she wouldn't be told – over her hands like mittens. "So that was progress? I dunno."

"Is he still trying to guilt you?"

"I'd say he's reduced the emotional manipulation right down to 50%."

"That _is_ progress."

"I know," Lily sighs, in an amused sort of way. "Maybe one day he'll deserve that _World's Greatest Dad_ mug I never bought him for his birthday that he never stops going on about not getting."

"What did you buy him instead?"

"A really beautiful watch that I couldn't afford."

"You monster."

"Actually, it sort of _was_ a cop-out present," she admits. "Don't know what to buy a man? Get a watch! Really, it's as indiscriminate as aftershave, it just seems more thoughtful because it's expensive."

"I'll remember that when I open the aftershave-dispensing watch you've bought me for Christmas."

"Sucks to be you, 'cause I've bought you neither."

"What _did_ you get me?"

"Oh, nothing – I thought I'd let you touch a boob and call it quits."

James knows that she's joking, but the blood in his veins, which launches into a mad, downwards dash, apparently does not, and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

The car in front of them is being manned by either a drunk or a six-year-old, so he doesn't have the luxury of taking his eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds, but he knows the smile she's wearing. She's become a right flirt, which isn't _too_ surprising – events in her life have conspired to see her light and free in a way she never was before – what's surprising is that _he_ , James, seems to be the primary object of her newfound playfulness. Sirius gets nothing but threats, and the occasional in-depth conversation about books.

Sirius has also been snogging Mary since the girls arrived two days ago, which may have something to do with it. But he likes to hope.

"Don't make me crash this car, Evans," he warns. "I've literally just had it since July."

"I'm hardly going to pop it out now, am I?" she retorts, giggling. "I can't even find them in this _tent_ of a jumper."

 _"You_ decided to wear it."

"Because it smells so lovely, you good-looking prick, hence why I didn't buy you aftershave."

He risks a couple of seconds to grin at her, and she smiles back, and they fall into a comfortable, companionable silence, and it'd all be so bloody idyllic if he weren't so shit-in-his-pants terrified to tell her the truth – that he loves her, that she's his dream girl, that he'll worship her forever if she only gives the word. Were he able to stomach such a feat… but he's not, so now is as close as he can get to the feeling to which he aspires.

Sirius, good mate that he is, has Mary occupied, and the adults are doing some Christmas Eve shopping for last-minute goodies. For once, he has her all to himself for an afternoon. That has to be good enough for now.

"Why only one boob?" he says, the thought suddenly occurring to him.

Lily bursts out laughing.

"I'm serious!"

"I know!" she cries. "What do you mean, why only one? Why one at all?"

"You suggested it!"

"Yeah, but like, as a joke because obviously I did get you presents?"

"Well," he retorts, fishing around in his brain for something that won't make him sound like a pervert. "It was a cruel joke, Lily."

"I mean, if there was anyone I'd trust to – but would you even _want_ to touch –"

"Obviously," he interrupts - finally, the drunk six-year-old veers off at the roundabout and James escapes to the right, which serves as a mild distraction from the erection he's desperately trying to keep at bay. "I'm seventeen and disgusting. Touching a boob in real life would make my bloody year."

"Oh, mine are nothing special," she says airily.

It feels as if she's trying to get him to say something, or admit to something. It's difficult to tell. Girls are so bloody confusing.

"We're nearly there," he tells her, trying to gear the conversation towards a more respectful territory before he ends up with a punched face. "Excited?"

"Like a kid on Christmas."

"I still can't believe you haven't seen it yet."

"We've been busy moving!"

"And you call yourself a real fan?"

"You only got into _Star Wars_ in the first place because of me," Lily reminds him, and lands a light thump on his arm as they near the car park. "Kindly don't question my commitment. You know you're supposed to be supporting me during this trying time, right?"

"What trying time?"

"I'm a child of divorce, James."

"The happiest child of divorce I've ever seen."

"Well, yeah," she admits. "I _am_ happy to be home, and because my mum has suddenly become this brilliant, hilarious person, but I was still sad to leave Ireland. I made friends there. And Dublin is wonderful, so you still have to be nice."

"Is it better than here?"

"I literally got to spend my weekends feeding a herd of deer in Phoenix Park," she says flatly. "I made friends with an overly-exuberant stag. So, yeah, a bit? But then, they don't have Greggs, so it's a pretty even toss-up."

"Or me."

"Or Greggs."

"What else don't they have?"

"God, you're so obsessed with compliments."

"I'm not!"

"You bloody are."

"I'm not obsessed with compliments," he doggedly insists. "I just want you to tell me I'm brilliant and handsome and better than Dublin."

"You want me to tell you that you're better than the capital of Ireland?"

"Or equal," he mumbles. "Whatever."

Lily laughs at that, while he reverses into a space near the back of the car park – he's quite good at bay parking, much to his own satisfaction – which feels pretty bloody great. Eliciting a laugh from her provides a singular kind of joy that he could happily spend his life chasing.

"You alright?" he asks, once the engine is killed and he can look at her properly, turned sideways in the passenger seat, snuggled right in.

"Mmm." She nods. There's a brilliant flush to her cheeks, and her eyes are unusually lustrous. "James Potter."

"Lily Evans?"

"Dare me to do something I'd never normally do."

He frowns. "What, like –"

"Nothing specific," she quickly interjects. "Just something I'd never normally do."

"Alright," he agrees, though this seems dangerous. "I dare you."

She reaches over and takes hold of his wrist, very gently, as if it the bones might crack if she squeezes too tight, then brings it to her, lifts that awful, oversized jumper that she loves so much, moves his hand beneath the folds, and then…

"Just one," she says, with a soft smile for his wide-eyed, awestruck face. "To make your bloody year."

And he's touching her.

Her skin is soft and warm, and it's like nothing he's ever felt before, like heaven, the most perfect thing he's ever done in his life. There's nothing between them and it's lovely, _lovely_ , and her breath hitches when he brushes his thumb _just there_ , lips parting just a little, and he thinks she'd let him kiss her if he tried but he can't move a muscle because he's gone. Lost. Barely even breathing...

And then his hand is his own again, and she's adjusting her clothes, opening the door, and he's supposed to sit through a _film_ with her as if she hasn't just ruined him. As if she hasn't ruptured his life wide open.

"Happy Christmas," she says, and hops out of the car.

This is it, he thinks. This is how he dies.


	5. twas the night before christmas

**Author's Note:** Okay look, this chapter just kept growing. That's not a euphemism.

Chapter six WILL be the last one. On this I can be quite certain and clear.

Special thanks to my partner for explaining how it feels to be a teenage boy with an erection that just won't quit. I, for obvious reasons, would not know what that feels like, for which I am quite thankful.

* * *

 **chapter 5: twas the night before christmas**

 **2015**

 **James**

Whatever he and Lily have become since the days of calumny and squabbles, there was an undercurrent of innocence to be found in it all, glowing faintly through a tangle of hormones, but that soft, honeyed magic is dead and buried. Lily ground innocence to dust with the heel of her scuffed Converse trainer, and concealing his erection beneath the popcorn they're sharing is not the inspired idea he had hoped it would be.

She keeps reaching inside and digging around, scraping the bottom of the bucket with the tips of her fingers, as if she's on the hunt for buried treasure, ignorant as to what she's perilously close to brushing against. "That's where all the salt ends up," she whispers, when he gives her a look, and directs her attention back to the screen. It's a miracle that she doesn't notice.

She's entranced by the movie, and so relaxed about what happened in the car. Meanwhile, James can't take in a shred of information, and struggles in vain to rid himself of a boner that won't go away.

It actually hurts, and keeps on hurting, and eventually he can feel it in his heart, throbbing, painful palpitations. He's never been so worked up in his life, yet he can't do a thing to stop it, not even hide in the bathroom and soft himself out, because it's a public toilet and that's so depraved, but more importantly, she might guess the truth and get offended. Girls get upset about things like that, he thinks. Perhaps. He can't actually be sure, because girls are still a mystery to him, but supposes as much, just to be on the safe side.

He can only sit and wait for the movie to end, so disconnected that he might as well be sleeping through it, willing it to stop but quite unable to quell the thoughts that fuel it.

Lily broke his body. She broke his brain. She broke _Star Wars._

She let him touch her.

He's ashamed of that, too. Not of Lily, goddess that she is, epitome of generosity, she who so charitably allowed him to place his undeserving hand on her beautiful breast, but of how willingly he participated. It was no mere brush of skin on skin, but a full-blown groping. He should have had the presence of mind to turn her down. He should have been less of a boy. He should have sprung for individual popcorn buckets, and then he might have a little peace.

The movie is a long, unpleasant experience, and when it ends, and he's struggling to recall a thing about it, Lily turns to him and tugs gently on his sleeve.

"I think I'm in love," she says.

He blinks once, stunned. "Sorry?"

"With Rey! She's incredible!"

"What?"

"I mean, I didn't think I could love anyone more than Leia," she says, climbing to her feet. "And I don't love her _more_ , exactly. To be honest, I'd say it's sort of equal, but she's so capable and strong and doing everything on her own! Like, you know that bit where Finn tried to run to her rescue, but she had already fought off those—"

He lets himself get lost in her chatter while he follows her out of the building. She doesn't need his help to discuss the finer points of the movie, so he can afford to be quiet. The sky has darkened in the preceding hours, so the car feels torrid, like returning to the scene of a crime. It's as if he has defiled her somehow, because she thinks it meant something that it didn't. Lily was simply being kind, allowing the sad, teenage virgin to touch a girl's breast for the first time in his life, because she doesn't know he'd carve out a kidney if it meant he could tear off all her clothes.

There's something disrespectful in omitting that truth, he's sure, but his guilt is juxtaposed with longing, for every inch of her he sees and all the rest he doesn't. He wants to touch her again, with his hands, with his mouth, and make her feel the way he feels now, aroused and wanting. He thinks he'd die, if he ever managed it.

He hopes he's not one of those Other Guys she's complained about before, skulking around with a hidden agenda, pretending that everything's good and she's just his chum when really he wants, so badly, to have sex with her. He's known that for a while but it never bothered him like it does now, but it was different when she lived so far away. There was a certain disconnect he can't claim to feel in the present. Now, he feels like something monstrous has taken root inside his chest.

Lily didn't murder innocence, _he_ did, because he's supposed to be her best friend, but he's lying to her face.

"Are you okay?" she asks him. She's sitting with her hands folded in her lap, peering at him with concern in her eyes.

"I'm fine," he replies. "Just tired."

He jams his key into the ignition, and even _that_ reminds him of what he wants to do to her, and he's immediately embarrassed.

"I need to get you into bed," she says quietly.

"What?"

"What?" she says innocently.

"You said—"

"That you need an early night, but we have to go to bed early anyway," she reminds him. "For Santa?"

Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's hearing what he wants to hear. He must be going mental.

Matters are made worse by his mother when they get home, as she greets them with a ringing cry of, "How was your date?" Everyone is gathered in the kitchen, all bustling, all action, happily immersed in preparations for tomorrow's Christmas lunch. Even Mary has been roped in to making cranberry sauce, while Sirius hovers over a saucepan of gravy.

"It was lovely, thanks," says Lily cheerfully, just as James mumbles, "It wasn't a date," and Sirius says, "He'd have to get some action for it to be a date," and that's too much for him to handle because he _did_ get some action.

Only he didn't, really. Or perhaps he did. He doesn't know.

"I don't feel well," he announces to the room at large. "I need to lie down."

His mother places a hand on his forehead immediately. "You feel fine. What's wrong with you?"

"I'm dying, Mum."

"Or you're trying to get out of helping in the kitchen."

"I'd never—"

"He's not," says Lily loyally. "He's really not feeling well."

"Fine," says his mum, though she still looks suspicious. "Go upstairs and have a nap. I'll check on you later."

He doesn't need to be told twice, and flees to his room where, contrary to his mother's wish, he does not deign to sleep.

He's never sleeping again.

 **Lily**

"At least I know for sure now."

"You're so wrong," says Mary. "So wrong, it makes you look stupid."

"I'm not wrong," Lily insists, and ignores Mary's tasteless impression of a woman being hung by a noose.

"You are, and it's so fucking annoying."

"I've got irrefutable proof."

"You're irrefutably bonkers."

"No, honestly, I know you want me to feel better but it's really fine. I can move on now, and get over him, or whatever. This whole move back was meant to be a fresh start, anyway, and I think—"

"Could you stop for like, a minute and listen?" Mary snaps, silencing her most effectively. "I passed on the Alps for a fun week, not to listen to you cry over a bloke who, let's face it, would literally die for you—"

"He wouldn't _die—"_

Mary lifts her arm and points toward the house, water dripping from her elbow. "He is straight-up nuts about you. I've seen him watch you blow your nose like you're a fucking double rainbow."

"He's just happy to have me here because we're friends."

"I hate you," Mary sighs. "But since I also love you, talk me through the boob thing, now that the adults are gone. Where's this irrefutable proof that doesn't really exist?"

Though they're not safely ensconced in the bedroom they've been sharing, the obvious place for a confidential chat, Fleamont and Euphemia's newly acquired hot tub offers privacy in the shape of bubbling water and a clear view of the patio doors that lead out to the decking in the back garden. Euphemia said they could feel free to use it, but warned them, with a twinkle in her eye that practically demanded an attempt at disobedience, that she'd prefer it if the teenagers of the household keep their visits same-sex only, owing to her disinclination to see anyone get pregnant. Sirius and Mary tried to get frisky in the tub while Lily and James were at the cinema and the parents were shopping in town, which is how they all learned about the security camera Euphemia had installed on the back wall.

"It's okay to be gay, but babies are nay," is her Christmas motto this year, though it's hard to take her seriously when she dashes out of the room every time she spots an opportunity to leave Lily alone with James. If he ever knocked her up, Euphemia would probably throw a ticker tape parade and bring a celebratory cake to every scan.

It's lovely and peaceful outside, surrounded by the stillness of a black sky and a crystal-clear canopy of stars, bathed in the glow of coloured lights that crisscross overhead and wrap around the spruce trees further back, drinking from large mugs of hot, spiced wine – a speciality of Lily's mum – and enjoying the fact that they're both here, together, no longer unable to cuddle under the same blanket to watch movies, or cry on one another's shoulders in the midst of a bad day. Mary has been Lily's closest friend for over a decade, and she considers her a true soulmate.

Spending Christmas with her two favourite people should be enough to keep Lily blissfully happy, but her heart is a little blue tonight, a delicate shade of cerulean to mar its usual, rosy pink. She has been straining for some sign that James reciprocates her feelings for two days, and has nothing to show for her trouble besides what has long been constant with him – that he's sweet, and respectful, that he makes her laugh and that he cares very much – but there's nothing else.

She doesn't know how to be clearer. She doesn't know how much more she can take of trying to flirt, or be affectionate, only to be met with awkward, anxious jokes. She hates herself for making him uncomfortable. He shouldn't be punished for her one-sided feelings.

So she takes a gluttonous mouthful of wine and steels herself to ignore Mary's inevitable speech about how they're destined to be together. "What do you want to know?"

"Every detail," says Mary, sliding further down into the water, her shoulders disappearing beneath the bubbles. "Did he actually hold it, or did you just mash his hand against it while he sat there looking like a goldfish?"

"It was, um, maybe fifty percent me mashing his hand, and then fifty percent grabbing?"

"So like, a proper squeeze?"

"Yeah, and he, you know, he touched my, erm—"

"Jesus, Lily, it's the twenty-first century. You can say 'nipple,' without the modesty police coming to arrest you," said Mary harshly. "Through your bra, I assume?"

It's luxuriously hot in the tub, but the colour that sweeps along Lily's collarbone has nothing to do with the water. "I wasn't wearing one."

Mary's sits back up with a splash. _"Excuse me?!"_

"I get bloated when I eat popcorn!"

"That's the worst excuse I've ever heard," says Mary, shaking water from her hands, then she grabs her phone from the decking with a vehement enthusiasm, as if she's preparing to fling it into the darkness. "And Sirius told Euphemia we were rescuing Algernon from drowning. Like, yeah, the woman co-owns a multi-million-pound business whilst raising two teenage boys and running a restaurant on the side _for fun_ , but sure, she'll believe us when we tell her that an aquatic rescue requires complete nudity."

"As if Algernon would ever drown," Lily puts in, feeling offended on the cat's behalf. Algernon is more intelligent than most people she knows.

"Whatever, you clearly had plans to shove his hand up your shirt or you wouldn't have gone braless. So he groped you. That clearly means—"

"That he's a teenage boy, and would literally grope any boob?"

"You're overthinking this. How was he after?"

"Quiet," says Lily darkly. "Really quiet, and weird. He barely talked to me after the film and he had a strange look on his face, like he was mad at me or something."

"Or had a giant stalk on—"

 _"Mary!"_

"Oh, don't even. You don't get to act like I'm being all uncouth when you dumped your childhood in the bin today."

"Don't exaggerate."

"Sorry, I meant to say that you dumped it in the bin and set it on fire," she amends, fiddling with her phone. "I feel sorry for that boy. He's a precious cinnamon roll and he loves you, and you're torturing him for fun."

"I would _never_ torture—"

"Shame."

"Mary, I'm not—"

"Shame."

"If you're going to do the angry nun again—"

 _"Shame."_

"Whatever, I'm drowning myself immediately."

"Don't even try, Mistress of Melodrama," says Mary. "I don't want to have to get naked."

 **James**

He shuts himself up in his bedroom all evening with a non-existent illness that his mother pretends to believe, sensing, perhaps, that something happened that he doesn't want to talk about. On one hand, this is terrible, because Christmas Eve is supposed to be family time and he'd been hoping to partner up with Lily for Pictionary – they'd destroyed everyone at Articulate last night – but on the other, Lily is the one who drove him to such extreme measures in the first place. He doesn't know how to pretend things are normal. He doesn't know how he's supposed to look at her, after what they did. His feelings will be scrawled across his face like graffiti on a wall, and then she'll _know_ , and then he'll shrivel up and die.

Later, his mother brings his dinner – the Potter family's traditional Christmas Eve Chinese takeaway – upstairs on a tray, Sirius following close behind, and apologises, with saccharine insincerity, for doubting her sweet baby boy when he is clearly on death's door.

That makes him feel worse. His mother probably knows it. She's an evil genius, Euphemia Potter. She and Algernon could overthrow the earth together, if they ever fancied it.

Life, James reflects, was easier when he _was_ her sweet baby boy, when the biggest problem he ever faced was being forced to take Lily into his bedroom to play despite not wanting to. Now, he'd do almost anything to take Lily into his room and… well, it's just a malicious kind of irony.

At least he has Sirius, who is in the doghouse after being caught in the hot tub with Mary Macdonald, which in this household means he gets one scoop of ice cream with dessert instead of two, and is under strict instruction to keep it in his pants for one night. James hasn't told him about what happened with Lily, which feels sort of wrong because he and Sirius share everything, but he knows his best mate, and he'll tease Lily to within an inch of her life if he finds out. Sirius can keep a secret until he spots an opportunity for mischief, at which point he'll happily let it fly free.

"Your mum said the least I could do was switch off the camera and be a bit stealthier in covering it up, and that she didn't raise me to make rookie mistakes like that," he tells James, swerving violently to his right as the car he operates on screen does the same thing. He's never been able to master sitting still when playing a console game, which means that James often gives him a wide berth for fear of injury.

"Did you point out that she didn't raise you at all?"

"As if I'd dare," says Sirius ominously. "Get in the box. Get in the box!"

"I'm already here!"

"Where?"

"Just hit it over!"

Sirius squints at the screen and charges his car forward, knocking the ball towards the goal. "Get it now!" he cries, but a member of the opposing team speeds in and smashes it away. "I could have had an assist there if you'd bothered to score."

"The ball was miles away from me!"

Sirius merely snarls and continues play, hammering the controller with his thumbs, and James, beginning to tire of this game, drops the controller into his lap and reaches for his phone for want of something else to do with his hands.

Strangely, the first thing he sees are some notifications from Mary, of all people, who has sent him a bunch of Facebook messages. Sirius hasn't yet noticed that he's stopped playing, so he opens up the app and reads through them.

 _Hey sweetie. Quick question._  
 _It's going to sound very weird, but trust me on this._  
 _I've been thinking over your situation and I was just wondering._ _  
_ _On a scale of 1 - 10, how would you rate your own abs?_

"The fuck?" he mutters under his breath.

"Mate, this is live play!" Sirius cries, outraged.

"Yeah, in a minute," says James, waving him away, and hastily types out a reply.

 _wtf do you need medical attention or something?_  
 _also 10/10 obviously but what's it to you_

Mary starts to compose her response as soon as he hits the send button. He has no idea what she and Lily are doing - honestly, he would have expected them to be asleep by now. His parents and Lily's mum knocked in to say goodnight close to an hour ago.

 _Of course not. Lily and I are in the hot tub with a lot of wine and I think this is an opportune moment for you and Sirius to come and join us._ _  
_ _Lily's really upset and she needs the kind of cheering up that only you can provide._

It's as if Mary has secured a direct line to his biggest weaknesses. Lily in a bikini would be damn near impossible to pass up. An unhappy Lily automatically compels him to seek her out and make her smile again. Combining the two doesn't even give him a choice.

He leaves his phone on the bed, darts to his bedroom window and peers out to ascertain that Mary isn't lying - two heads, one red, one brown, are indeed visible in the tub - and practically dives into his wardrobe to locate his swimming trunks.

"What the fuck, mate?"

"Mary wants us to go outside," he tells Sirius. "She and Lily are in the hot tub. Go get your trunks."

Luckily, Sirius is more concerned with his own sexual gratification than beating two strangers on the internet at Rocket League, so he drops his controller and prances off to his own bedroom to change. Meanwhile, James hurriedly divests himself of his clothes and replies to Mary's summons. He's not really sure what the plan is, if there is a plan, but he's grateful that Mary and Sirius are going to be there with them. Even if they're crawling all over one another, they'll make for a good distraction, because he still doesn't think he can face Lily alone without giving himself away, and that's the last thing on his agenda.

 _down in a minute_  
 _why is she upset?_  
 _it's after midnight she can't be upset on christmas day i won't let that happen_

Mary is admirably fast to respond, and James learns, with a thunderous bang, that he can be utterly undone with one sentence.

 **Lily**

Getting out of the tub requires surrendering oneself to the cold for twenty seconds, which neither of them feel up to, so she's reading _Pride and Prejudice -_ the literary equivalent of comfort food - and Mary's playing on her phone when Sirius surprises them both by bursting out of the house with no clothes on.

"Cannonball!" he cries, startling Algernon, who is lounging nearby, and dashes across the decking with his arms in the air. A hair's breadth from dropping her book into the water from fright, Lily instead cocks a judgmental eyebrow at Mary, who has the good grace to look ashamed of her taste in men.

"You fucking shit, Sirius," Mary hisses, setting her phone down as Sirius comes to a halt above them. Algernon has raced back into the house with an enraged yowl. "You can't cannonball into a fucking hot tub, and do you want to wake _everyone_ in the house?"

"They won't hear," says Sirius dismissively.

"Ten quid says they will."

"I'll take that bet, Macdonald. Now, budge over."

Thankfully, he isn't fully naked. Lily's not overly keen on the sight of his skinny, shining, marble-white body to begin with, so his black trunks, whilst far too short and reminiscent of a basketball player from the eighties, are a welcome addition to his look. He has oddly hairless legs, and the overall effect is one of a grinning wax statue. People, her own mother included, think he's handsomer than James - lovely, tall, adorable James with his lopsided glasses and caramel skin and out-of-this-world hair - which beggars belief.

"What are you doing out here?" she asks, once Sirius is in the tub and Mary has wrapped herself around him like a shameless, starving hussy.

"It's after midnight," he points out. "Merry Christmas. This is my gift to the both of you."

"I told you I'd be good with a Waterstones voucher," says Lily, and lifts her book to protect her eyes from what will probably become some ostentatious hot tub foreplay.

"How can I afford a Waterstones voucher when I'm homeless?"

"You live in a mansion," Mary points out.

"Not my mansion," says Sirius, and points towards the house. "His."

Lily's eyes, partly shielded by her book, follow the direction of his finger, and sure enough, there he is, and sure enough, her heart is pounding.

The last time she saw him without a top on, they were probably about eleven, two skinny, twiglet kiddos in a hotel in Majorca. That was a family holiday made memorable by the huge, inflatable banana that she and James, for reasons she couldn't possibly recall now, fought over continually in the pool, until Euphemia ran out of patience and popped it with a diamond earring. To this day, she still discusses Bananagate as if it were some sort of global humanitarian crisis.

He's not eleven now.

Definitely not eleven.

"It's _bloody_ cold," he announces, and sort of skips across the deck, with too much energy for this time of night. Ashamed of the libidinous thoughts now racing through her mind, Lily raises her book higher, and sinks as far beneath the water as she can go, until it's bubbling against her chin.

"Hah!" cries Mary, a laugh that comes mostly from her nose, so it sounds like a goose's honk. A grunt from Sirius indicates that she has elbowed him. "James is fitter than you!"

"No he isn't!" says Sirius, sounding intensely affronted.

"From the neck down, I mean. You've still got a prettier face," she clarifies, pointing. "Where'd you get that hot bod, child?"

"Sports," says James happily, and plops into the water on Lily's side of the tub. "And effort. A lot of effort. Also, aren't I older than you?"

"Biologically, yes. Metaphysically, no," says Mary. "For whom have you put in this effort, may I ask?"

"Her," says James, and pokes Lily's shoulder beneath the bubbles.

Her heart begins to spasm.

She turns her head and gapes at him, protected from what's bound to be a smug smile from Mary by her trusty book, but James is taking his glasses off and setting them down on the edge of the tub, and doesn't notice what he's done to her. What one word has done to her.

He can't mean it. Not after two days of nothing. He would have given her some sign before this.

She's reading into things. She's just being dramatic.

"Oh yeah, of course," says Mary, in a tone that seems rehearsed. "Don't you two fancy each other, or something?"

James pushes his hair away from his forehead. "Think so, yeah. I fancy _her,_ anyway."

Then he reaches over and plucks Jane Austen from her hands, and she's unprotected, and he's going to be the death of her.

"Mary wants to know if you fancy me," he says, and drops the book next to his glasses. "Do you?"

He's grinning at her like he already knows the answer.

Lily looks suspiciously at Mary, who shrugs, and starts whispering something in Sirius's ear.

Is she on a hidden camera show? How is this happening? Only hours ago, James was almost despondent, and apparently ill, but somewhere between seeing the movie and climbing into the tub, he's undergone an extreme shift in gears. Perhaps there's something in Euphemia's claim that Calpol for ages six and under is still the perfect medicine for grown men.

And he said that he...

Her heart is beating _so_ fast. He must surely be able to hear it.

"You're feeling better," she remarks, more coldly than she'd like.

"I had some good news."

"Which was?"

He shrugs. "Why don't you tell me?"

Considering how near-sighted he is, and how he mustn't be able to make her out very well, he's staring her down with unreasonable effectiveness. "Can you even see without your glasses on?"

"They'll get all steamed up if I don't take them off," says James, and holds his hand about a foot in front of his face. "I can see to about _here_ just fine. You're a bit blurry, but I can fix that."

"What?"

"Come here," he says, with an authority that's quite unlike him, his hand closing around her wrist beneath the water, and she finds herself being tugged towards him, sliding over, weightless and unresistant, until the gap between them no longer exists, and his arm is wrapped around her very bare shoulders.

The fact that they're both practically naked, and that they're sharing a space with two other smug, smirking people, has not escaped her, and her cheeks are turning scarlet. "What are you do—"

"I can see you properly now," he says, and grins down at her. "You're pretty when you're wet."

"Is that a euphemism?" says Sirius, while Mary chimes in with, "Only when she's wet?"

"She's always pretty," James amends, and then in a very low tone, just for her, allowing Mary and Sirius to grow distracted by one another. "You're always pretty."

Lily might actually pass out. Why not? It sounds quite appealing at present. Whatever dosage Euphemia fed to her son while he was barricaded in his bedroom, it seems to have bolstered him to a level of cockiness she hasn't seen since he was thirteen and picking on her, and damned if it isn't doing crazy things to her heart.

"Beautiful, actually," he amends. "Pretty's not a good enough word."

"Oh," she says blankly.

"You don't mind me saying that, do you?"

"No."

"Only I thought it was about time one of us did, finally," he expounds. "After what happened in the car."

He's really very close, and it's strange to see him without his glasses, but he's truly bloody gorgeous, and has her trapped in his gaze like a deer in headlights regardless.

"You mean when—"

"The best moment of my life? Yeah, I do. When do I get to touch the other one, by the way?"

If Lily was blushing before, it's got nothing on what's happening to her now. Her hand, the one that isn't wedged between her thigh and his, flies up to cover her chest. "The other one?"

He wriggles his eyebrows.

 _"James!"_

"What?"

"You're..." She glances unsteadily at Sirius and Mary, who are caught up in their own thing - in fact, Sirius is _definitely_ doing something to her friend beneath the water that Lily doesn't want to know about - and drops her voice to a whisper. "Flirting with me?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Can't help it anymore." He draws a circle on her shoulder with his finger. "You never answered my question."

"What question?"

"Do you fancy me?"

Their noses are practically touching. So close, and she could _just_ , finally, and she should. "Kiss me and I'll tell you."

There's no mistaking the way he smiles at her, but he shakes his head. "Can't."

"Why not?"

"Not in front of them," he says, and points at Sirius and Mary. "Not the first time."

Sirius is practically chewing Mary's ear, and Mary is giggling, and neither of them are paying much attention to their friends on the other side, but Lily gets it. She does, because she's not Mary, and he isn't Sirius and this isn't a week-long, saucy Christmas fling, but someone she loves, and the where and the why and the how of it matters.

So she stands up, rivulets of water running down her skin, gasping in surprise when she hits the cold air, and instinctively he claps a hand to her thigh, as if to steady her, gazing at her navel as if he's witnessing perfection, and she wants him so badly that she could scream for it right here.

"Come on," she tells him, and holds out her hand. "We're going."

"Where?"

"Anywhere." She's starting to shiver. "I don't care. We need to be alone."

Sirius makes some stupid, childish noise to mock them, so Lily kicks water in his face and climbs out, and James follows, scooping up his glasses as he goes. She takes his hand and retreats into the house, slipping through the slender gap between the open glass door and the wall, and she's not yet tasted warmth but there's a sudden click, and the light snaps on, and she finds herself looking at James's mother, garbed in the silkiest of robes, face mask still applied, with Algernon sitting snugly in her arms.

"Happy Christmas, you two," says Euphemia sweetly, and the crook of her eyebrow tells them they've been rumbled. "Looks like I got what I wanted."


	6. and to all a good night

**2015**

 **James**

It's a crime that his mother hasn't yet become a meme.

Once the four naughty children in her care have been herded into the house, forced to dry off in separate rooms and bundled into dressing gowns like a bunch of in-patients who tried to escape a hospital and got caught wading through a muddy river, she brings them to the living room and commences her performance. She's more accomplished than the most tenacious Bond villain—and Euphemia knows a lot about Bond, considering the first and middle names she foisted upon her only son—having waited patiently in the darkness for any one of them to come skipping into the kitchen, thinking life was good and they were in the clear. This, he feels, is not about their behaviour, this is her triumph at having caught all four of them in wrongdoing.

"Well, well, well," she recites, pacing back and forth across the Persian rug, so suffused with fiendish glee at being party to some sort of drama in her home that she starts to steeple her fingers. "You thought you could outsmart me. You _thought."_

James has never thought such a thing in his life. His mother cannot be outsmarted. She is intellectual kevlar.

As for what he _was_ thinking, he'd thought he might have been able to seclude himself in his bedroom with Lily for a few magical hours. He'd thought that finally, after years of pining, he was minutes away from getting everything he's ever wanted. He'd _thought_ that his mum might have been pleased to see that he and Lily were finally making something happen—and she is, but as she told James before she sent him packing to the under-stairs toilet with a towel and a proud wink, she can't be a hypocrite and punish only one set of horny teenagers—but he hadn't reckoned on Sirius yelling about cannonballs on the deck like a catastrophic idiot.

James will have to murder him for that, which means his own death is inevitable, because he's almost entirely sure that he can't live without Sirius.

"Have I told you lately that your skin is glowing with the first flush of youth?" says Sirius to Euphemia, when she asks them, individually, to explain their behaviour.

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he _can_ live without Sirius.

"I don't need you to tell me that, every mirror in this house will do the same with no ulterior motive," Euphemia responds, and strokes her own cheek. She removed her face mask while her young prisoners were drying off. "I'd much rather hear you explain why you're so determined to impregnate our young guest."

"If it helps any, I'm on the pill?" suggests Mary. In general, Lily's best friend is a bold kind of person, but in this instance it seems pertinent to assume that she has, perhaps, had a little too much of that spiced wine she was chugging outside.

"Oh." Euphemia sends her a flat look. "Then by all means, _please,_ debase yourselves in our hot tub."

"Excellent," says Sirius, and makes to stand up. "We'll just head off and go ups—"

"Sit down, or you'll be given the happy task of feeding Algernon his worm medicine in the morning."

Sirius sits back down immediately. "I'm a legal adult, and I'm at perfect liberty to debase myself in whatever way I choose."

"The many crusty socks your room has yielded stand as testament to your honesty. You two can drain and clean out the hot tub in the morning," says Euphemia, then turns her attention, instead, to James's beloved, who is sinking into the sofa cushions with her knees pulled to her chest and her feet tucked in against her bottom, gazing—in a vacant, half-asleep sort of way—at the lights on the Christmas tree. "One couple down, one to go."

He knows why his mother is looking to Lily in search of the truth, but—much like the self-sacrificing, heroic version of himself who existed in the dramatic fantasies of his earlier teens—he won't let her take the heat when he can step up in her place. She had been innocently reading a book when he came outside and ambushed her, whatever decisions his appearance may have inspired later.

"Lily didn't do anything wrong," he begins, and refuses to be silenced by a look from his mother. "It wasn't her fault, it was mine, I was the one who went outs—"

"She can speak for herself," says his mother without looking at him. "Well, Lily?"

Lily looks up from the tree like she's coming out of a trance, and meets his mother's gaze as if she's only just noticed that she's in a room with other people. Her hair is beginning to dry, curling past her shoulders in soft, fluffy waves. "Yes?"

There are moments—like this one—where she's so pretty, so _achingly_ pretty, that James can't bear to look at her, because it makes something twinge in his heart, and he must turn his undeserving eyes away.

"Well?" Euphemia repeats. "Is my son telling the truth? Are you the innocent party in all of this?"

"Bloody hell, Mum."

"I'm not innocent," says Lily slowly, like one considering the weight of the words that fall from her tongue. "But I'm not guilty, either, and neither is James. We just wanted to go to his room."

"Which we've done a million times before, and you've never minded."

"Gone to his room, yes. Gone to his room _holding hands?_ No, so you can imagine why I'm curious."

"We had stuff to talk about," James pipes up.

"What stuff?"

"Private stuff."

"Such as?"

"It's called 'private' for a reason, Mum."

"Don't sass me, James."

"Sass," Mary repeats, and snorts to herself.

"We weren't going to have unprotected sex in a hot tub, if that's what you're worried about," Lily interjects, pulling the sleeves of her snow white robe as far over her hands as length allows. "We were just going to talk, we had a lo—"

"Oh, just talking?" His mother's disbelief is evident. "Is that all you were going to do with your mouths?"

"Well, maybe not," says Lily, rather crossly. "But if you hadn't wanted me to fall for your son, you should have done a worse job of raising him."

James's heart soars like a dove, but Euphemia's eyebrows fly towards her hairline, and a short silence follows, during which—he can only assume—she mulls over just how angry she needs to get. Lily has never snapped at her before, never spoken against her, never once gave cheek. It was one of the things he used to hate about her when they were children. He was always letting his mouth get him in trouble, while she was the one who played nice in front of their parents.

What a moment she's chosen for a change of pace. And what a silly, senseless child he'd been.

Then Euphemia laughs, one sharp, unexpectedly loud note of mirth that sends Algernon to his feet with an irascible hiss.

"That was sass, young lady," she says to Lily, pointing towards her chest, an accusatory gesture that, nonetheless, has no anger behind it.

"I know," says Lily, with a self-deprecating sort of smile. "I'm sorry."

"If it was anyone else..." Euphemia begins. "But I've never been good at telling you off, and I've always thought that you'd be good for him."

"I know."

"He needs keeping on his toes."

"I know."

"And you understand, yes, that I do this only because I want you all to be safe?" She glances at Sirius. "And that I know some of you _too_ well to assume that you're all making sensible decisions?"

Lily nods. "Understood."

"Right, well, you and my son have earned yourselves the honour of making breakfast for everyone in the morning," his mother tells them both, then looks at him, her lips curling upwards with undisguised delight. She inclines her head towards Lily. "Well done on landing such a catch."

"Gee, thanks," he mutters, face burning.

"Go on, get to bed, all of you. Your _own_ beds, mind," says Euphemia warningly. "It's Christmas Day and it's well past midnight. You should all be tucked up asleep, not exploring one another's crevices."

She escorts them all upstairs, sees them to their individual bedrooms and promises to check on them at regular intervals during the night, which effectively drains the night of its last vestige of potential romance, even if James suspects that she's lying, and will be flat-out unconscious from the moment her head hits her pillow. Nothing kills a mood like being caught out by your mother, and Lily deserves nothing less than absolute perfection. He wants to kiss her so much that his heart might implode, but it ought to be as special as she is.

She likes him. Wants him. Mary first confirmed it, but now he's heard it from her own mouth and he'll never stop replaying it in his head. She's _fallen_ for him, much as he feels he doesn't deserve her. _Him._

It's an actual Christmas miracle.

 **Lily**

Mary shakes her awake at 10am and yells at her to 'get up, get up, you turd,' which isn't how she wanted to start the day.

Like a little girl on Christmas—or herself, in short, as she was ten years ago—she'd been too giddy to settle all night and lay awake for hours, thinking only about James and what they'd done, or almost done, or might yet do, and how excited she was to get him on his own. It turned out to be her undoing, because her body—as bodies often do—surrendered to exhaustion when the house began to stir, and her mother and Euphemia were shuffling around downstairs, no doubt preparing a display of gifts. They still insist upon doing the Santa thing, even though their children are all but adults now.

There's nothing technically wrong with sleeping in, but it's Christmas Day, and the general consensus is a household rising early. More than that, her immediate worry is that James may not believe that she's impatient to see him, which she cannot allow to happen. She winds up racing downstairs in her pyjamas at Mary's urging, with her hair all a mess and no makeup on—the exact opposite of the cool, effortlessly beautiful picture she wants to present.

He's in the kitchen when she comes downstairs, showered and dressed—the plain red button down his mum insisted he wear for the occasion is a marvellous look on him—and cooking bacon on the stove.

"Hi, hi, good morning, I couldn't sleep for ages and then I started dropping off and I thought I'd only sleep for half-an-hour and it's all a big thing," she tells him, zipping over to his side and stopping just short of accidentally slamming into him. "I'm so sorry, I should've—"

"Why are you apologising to James?" says her mother.

Everyone else in the house, save Mary, who woke her up and went to the loo, is sitting at the kitchen island in front of empty plates, watching her expectantly. In her haste to get to James, Lily simply blew right past them.

"I, erm," she says. "I was supposed to help him cook breakfast."

"It's alright," says James cheerfully. His parents started teaching him to cook when he was fourteen, and he's pretty bloody good at it. "I've got it all covered like a champ, one magical Christmas breakfast, coming right up."

She turns the full extent of her attention back to him. "At least let me help you."

"It's fine, honestly, it's mostly done—"

"There has to be something you need—"

"Seriously, don't worry about—"

"I'm going to feel guilty all morning if you don't let me help," she insists, with her hands on her hips, even though the thing she's sorry for has nothing to do with breakfast and everything to do with a missed opportunity to steal a moment alone together. He won't turn her down if he thinks it might upset her. "Please?"

"Alright, fine," he agrees, and nods to a saucepan. "You can do the baked beans—"

"That's it?"

"And chop those mushrooms," he instructs, and she lifts an eyebrow at him, and he laughs. "I've already got everything else done, I swear!"

"I'll accept that, even though I don't fully believe it," she says, and tosses a glance over her shoulder as she reaches for a can of baked beans that James must have left out in advance. Her mother is deep in conversation with his parents, while Sirius scrolls idly through his phone. "Listen, I'm so sorry about getting up so late, that wasn't what I planned—"

He passes her the can-opener. "You don't have to be sorry."

"No, I do, I don't want you to think that I don't—" She looks over her shoulder again, and lowers her voice. _"You know."_

"Like it isn't all I've been thinking about."

Her heart dings in her chest like one of those bells they ring to kick off wrestling matches, but she valiantly carries on. "Also, I'm sorry that I look like such a mess this morning, especially when you're so handsome, and—"

"Am I?"

"You know you are."

"I do," he agrees, and slides a shy smile at her. "But hearing it from you is _so_ much better than telling myself in the mirror."

She laughs, and remembers that she should be opening tins, not staring at him with a doe-eyed, lovesick expression. "You tell your reflection how handsome he is?"

"Sometimes," James admits. "And I dunno what you mean about looking like a mess—"

"I haven't even had time to shower—"

"—because I think you look—"

"Happy Christmas, my sleepy wee girl," says her mother, who comes up behind her and rests a hand on her shoulder, so thoroughly unexpected that Lily and James both jump at the sound of her voice. "Are you okay? You never usually get up this late."

"Happy Christmas, Mum," she says, and turns around. "I'm so sorry, I just couldn't sleep until really late, that's all."

Her mother doesn't seem convinced by this, though it seems that Euphemia has kept quiet about her daughter's late night misadventures, or she would certainly have said something by now. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

"How much wine did you have last night?"

"One mug, if even."

"And you don't have your monthlies, do you?"

 _"Mum!"_

"It's _fine,_ James doesn't care, I'm sure he knows that you have woman parts by now," says Grace, which is just about the strangest slice of irony that Lily has ever been fed, and she can feel him stifling a laugh as the same thought occurs to him. "There's no need to be embarrassed about it."

"I don't have my period," Lily tells her, scanning the forefront of her memory for a harmless ailment she can throw out to appease her. "I had a headache, that's all."

"I thought as much. You look very pale," says Grace, and smooths a stray hair away from her daughter's forehead. "Perhaps you've got what James had last night?"

"Mononucleosis?" says Sirius from the island.

Euphemia hits him on the head with a rolled-up linen napkin.

* * *

Breakfast is delicious—especially, she insists, the mushrooms and the beans—even with James's mother loudly reminiscing about all the baths Lily and James had shared together when they were very, very little. That's an embarrassing side-dish that neither of them asked for, but at least Euphemia is amusing herself.

"It's meta," she whispers to Lily, brushing past her at the table as she clears away her plate. "I know the meaning of that word."

After breakfast comes presents, which takes the better part of an hour—even Mary has a pile the size of a very large child—but once that's done, there comes a small window of time in which they can do as they please.

Trouble is, the massive breakfast she's recently eaten has made her feel a little less than desirable, and the aromatherapy oils Mary dumped into the hot tub have seeped into her hair, so she opts to have a shower and promises to be fast. James's father springs, though, as soon as she's washed and dried and fresh as a posy, and whatever time they'd hoped to spend together is snatched from right beneath their noses. A hike through the neighbouring woods is the one Christmas tradition upon which Fleamont insists, so the whole family is forced to spend an hour trekking about outside.

"This seemed like such a stylish choice when I bought it," she tells Mary, looking down at her dress, or what she can see of it beneath the additional layers—including her coat and one of James's hoodies—she had to pile on to protect against the cold.

Mary fingers a piece of Lily's ivory lace skirt. "It's still a stylish choice, bub."

"Doesn't really go with the wellies."

"Nothing but Country Casuals and six-year-olds go with wellies," Mary points out. "Just don't slip and fall in the mud; the last thing you want is a dirty arse on Christmas."

"A dirty what?" says Sirius, turning around on one foot to face the girls and essentially halt the four of them in their tracks. He and James are a little bit in front of them, serving as an excellent guard against the frosty wind, while up ahead, the adults lead the procession through the trees.

"You're so puerile," says Mary in disgust.

"That speaks more to your taste than to mine, Macdonald."

"Oh, shut up."

"You shut up."

"Wow," says Lily, with wide eyes, and shares a look with James, who had also turned around mid-walk to face them. "One morning spent cleaning a hot tub and suddenly you hate each other?"

"Hate's not the word I'd use," says Mary, and steps forward to shove Sirius by the shoulder. He stumbles backwards and laughs at her. "Maybe if he hadn't let me do all the work when we were cleaning—"

"You were so much better at it than I was—"

"That's the excuse you're going to land on?"

"I figured it'd come off better than the truth, which is that I couldn't be arsed."

"You're a child, Sirius," Mary tells him coldly, then shoves past him to move ahead of them all. "Come on, let's give Lily and your much fitter friend some well-deserved privacy."

She stomps off at speed to catch up with the adults, and with an eye-roll and the kind of sigh that Lily would expect from a long-suffering mother of eight, Sirius turns and follows her.

"That didn't last very long," says James.

"Eh," she replies. "They'll get past it once they've had enough to drink later."

He smiles at her, so tall and handsome in his dark cashmere coat his mother bought him, with the crisp breeze ruffling his hair and his hands tucked inside his pockets for warmth. On a normal day, he would set her heart to racing, but hers has been going at a hundred miles per minute since the moment she sprang from her bed, so it's all much of a muchness. Every smile and look and inch of space between them is buzzing with electricity, while frissons of anticipation zip through the winter air, and Lily feels suffused with a restless, shivering energy that will be spent, she knows, by just one thing.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi," he repeats. "You look so pretty in that dress."

"I do?"

"Mmm." He nods down at her. "That's what I was trying to tell you this morning, before your mum interrupted."

"I wasn't wearing the dress this morning."

"The dress was just an excuse; it's like I told you last night, you're always gorgeous."

She can hardly bring herself to meet his gaze—he elicits every warm and fuzzy feeling that she's read about in soppy books and pretended she didn't believe—just as she can hardly bring herself to break it, and she smiles, her cheeks as warm as the tip of her nose is cold.

Up ahead, her mother laughs raucously at something Euphemia is saying, while Fleamont captures yet another shot of the winter scenery on his brand-new DLSR.

"They'll notice if we sneak off somewhere," she tells him. His mother has done them a kindness, keeping their secret to herself. Lily doesn't want it openly acknowledged just yet. She doesn't want to be the main attraction at dinner. She only wants to be alone with him, but more importantly, she wants the time to enjoy it. "And I don't—I mean, I know everyone's going to be happy about it, but we haven't even kissed yet, so..."

"I know," he agrees. "Same."

She moves on, and he falls into step with her at once, his arm brushing against hers.

"Do you think they'll, you know," she says, and gestures to Mary and Sirius up ahead. "Last, or whatever?"

"Probably not."

"You think?"

"Sirius isn't like me," James explains, loping beside her at a slower pace than his usual. His legs are far longer, but he's always happy to slow his step to match hers. "I mean, he _is,_ in a lot of ways, but he's not into the whole girlfriend thing—thinks it's pointless."

"To be honest, I don't think Mary's that big of a fan, either."

"He told me once that having a girlfriend is a like making a conscious choice to stick your head in a toilet," he says. "Painful for you, ultimately hilarious for everyone else."

"Mary once told me that love was for selling chocolate and getting Hugh Grant's career through the nineties."

"How sweet that they found each other."

"And yet, how incredibly worrying."

"Imagine if he _did_ knock her up."

"Their children would be so damaged."

"Can you imagine them going out for the night after they've had the kid?" he says, chuckling at whatever has just occurred to him. "The baby would be lying there in its crib, and they'd just, like, throw twenty quid at it for food."

"Instead of actually feeding it?"

"Yeah," he continues. "They'd just say something like, 'get yourself a pizza, baby,' and leave to get trashed at a wine bar."

She laughs, wrapping her arms around herself to stave off the chill. "Have they neglected to name their baby in this scenario?"

"It seems like something they'd forget."

"Or they'd give it a name that's guaranteed to haunt it for the rest of its life."

"Like Hodor."

"Or Dostoyevsky."

"Or Fleamont," says James, and snorts. "Don't tell my dad I said that."

"I don't need to. Your dad would be the first person to point out how terrible his name is," Lily reminds him. "I'm so glad that you weren't named after him, honestly."

"Imagine how embarrassed you'd be every time you had to introduce me to someone."

"God, that'd be _awful,"_ she laments, and steps around a large, mud-filled puddle in the forest floor, with her eyes trained on her feet. Even in wellington boots, she doesn't want to risk splashing mud upon her dress. "'So nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Obama, and have you met my boyfriend, Fleamont?'" She shakes her head. "Nope. It doesn't work."

"I dunno," he says, his tone thoughtful. "I think it works a little."

"You'd honestly be okay with meeting the Obamas if your name was _Fleamont?"_

"If my name was Fleamont, I'd be down to the registry office to change it as soon as I turned eighteen."

"So what—"

"You called me your boyfriend," he points out, and looks utterly thrilled to have said it. "Just like—just now, like it was no skin off your nose."

At some point, they must have ceased to walk, but Lily is only noticing now, standing across from him in a patch of damp, long-dead leaves while the sound of their parents' laughter echoes up ahead. He's grinning from ear-to-ear, looking very much as overjoyed as she feels.

"I did," she admits. "Is that okay?"

"Are you joking? Of course it's okay, I was hardly going to let you take it back."

"I don't want to take it back."

"Well, good," he says, with great emphasis. "I think you look dead cute in those wellies."

She laughs at how unexpected it is, and how silly, and how utterly like him it is to say it. "I think you look dead handsome in that coat."

"I like it when you wear my clothes."

"I like it when you grope me in your car."

"I _love_ groping you in my car."

"We should make a habit of it, really," she ponders aloud. "Fancy a really long drive tomorrow?"

"Absolutely. Done. Whatever you want," he says, and then, as if he might actually burst, "I really want to kiss you."

"I really want to kiss you, too," she says, and points at the little crowd of people ahead. "But parents."

"So?"

"I'll remind you that you wouldn't kiss me just because Mary and Sirius were there."

"Yeah, but that was last night," he contends, and slings his arm around her shoulders, steering her on towards their parents, who have stopped and waved, and beckoned them to come and catch up. "I'm at least fifty times more desperate today."

 **James**

Dinner is a grand affair, for his mother has procured a turkey the size of a one-bedroom flat, which is a shame, because James has never been less interested in eating than he is for the entirety of this never-ending meal. Lily keeps _looking_ at him, sequestered all the way on the other side of the table, reaching over occasionally to brush her foot against his leg, and it's all so bloody frustrating that he wants to upend his chair.

Eleven hours. He's been up and about for _eleven_ hours, and he hasn't kissed her once.

All things must come to a close, however, even a Christmas dinner of such enormous magnitude as theirs, and once his father succumbs to a postprandial dip and falls asleep on the sofa, his mum, along with Grace and Mary, gets plastered on mulled wine and punch, so they start an impromptu concert of cheesy Christmas songs in the kitchen. The singing is strange, and mostly painful, but the dance moves—consisting of all three women staggering across the room in the world's shortest conga line and wiggling their arms like ribbons, oddly in sync despite having consumed the contents of an entire vineyard between them—are even stranger.

 _"I've only just begun to knowwwwww you,"_ his mother warbles. She's hugging a bowl of dream topping to her chest. _"All I can say—"_

 _"Is won't you stay,"_ Grace joins in. _"Just one more day?"_

Sirius has inexplicably become their DJ, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a portable speaker in his lap, playing drunken air piano, and while Mary screeches, _"Stay now!"_ at the ceiling with wild abandon, James sidles up to the only person he wants to be with in that moment. In any moment. In every moment.

He's just a stupid, sentimental kid, but he knows what love is, and he knows that every scrap of love that lives within his heart is made and meant for her alone. She's been the only one for him since the moment she poured his mother's punch over his head, and it's about time that she knew it.

"I never thought I'd be the least dramatic person in the room," he tells her. "But here we are."

Lily, who has been virtually silent since dinner, is perched on a stool behind the breakfast bar, watching their mothers dance with a thoughtful, mellow softness in her eyes.

"Least dramatic? You?" She wrinkles her nose. "I think you forgot about me."

"Didn't."

"Clearly, you did."

"Not possible," he contests. "I'm always thinking about you."

A slow smile touches her lips, and she turns to him as if to reply, but their potentially beautiful moment is stolen from his grasp by Mary, who lurches up to Lily and clasps her face firmly between her hands.

 _"I touch your face while you are sleeeeeeeping,"_ she croons. _"And hold your hand, don't understand what's going on."_

"Jesus," says Lily. "You're wasted."

"I'm wasted and I fucking love you," says Mary. She has black smudges around her eyes.

"That's really good to know, Mare," Lily patiently replies.

"I love both of you," Mary continues. She pokes James between the ribs, hard. "You're _adorable_ , Potter. You two and your little... your little romance going on—"

"I should go and feed Algernon," he says quickly.

Grinning, Mary begins to sway from side to side, and resumes her tone-deaf singing.

 _"Baby if you've got to go away, don't think I can take the pain, won't you—_ hey!" She points to the slither of space between them in fine, dramatic fashion. "Have you two shagged yet?"

"Go feed Algernon now," says Lily urgently, and claps a hand on Mary's arm with a panicked glance at their dancing mothers. "Please."

Mary squeals and tries to escape, and James, who would rather die than answer probing questions should Lily's mother overhear anything—it's bad enough that his own mother has been sending smug smiles their way like an all-knowing deity since breakfast—does as Lily asks, grabbing a few slices of leftover turkey because digging out cat food requires passing the gauntlet of drunk parents, which he doesn't have the heart to try. Euphemia, while an affectionate drunk, has no awareness of her own strength, nor how sharp her fingernails can get when she digs them into his arm to pull him into a hug.

Algernon's bowls are kept in the hall, which is cool and dim, and with the door closed behind him the sound of the music is muffled. It's marked relief from the hot, noisy kitchen, a respite he craves, because a couple of mugs of spiced wine mixed with Lily's presence makes for a heady, confusing cocktail. His cat is nowhere to be found and his water bowl is untouched, but there's not a scrap of food left, so James drops to his knees to fill it.

Behind him, the kitchen door opens—the final refrains of East 17's ballad ring shrilly through the air for a moment—and closes again.

"Hey," says Lily, quietly.

He looks at her over his shoulder.

She's really very close to him, and so gorgeous in her pretty new dress, and he doesn't understand why he hasn't kissed her already. He should have done it this morning. He should have done it last night, as soon as she asked. He should always be kissing her, at every opportunity that presents itself. They've already wasted more than enough time.

"Hey," he says.

"Have you fed him?"

"Just finished, his water bowl's still full, so—"

"Good," she says, firmly. "Get up, James."

As soon as he's on his feet, Lily shoves him, lightly, not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to force him backwards, enough for his head to bump against the wall behind him. She moves with him, sliding both hands up his chest, and his skin burns under his clothes from her touch, then her fingers tangle in his hair and he can't hear _anything_ —the music has gone, and the singing has faded to nothing—but the blood that pounds in his ears, and then she's on her toes and she's kissing him and there's no reticence, no moment of hesitation, just the feeling of her mouth on his, warm and hungry and beautiful.

He doesn't have to think about responding, simply does, as natural and easy as breathing or falling asleep. His hands travel along her spine to hold her in place, and he moans into her mouth when she grinds her hips against his, and she's flush against him but she's not close enough; he'd have to be part of her to be close enough. He'd have to be inside her, and that's the only thing he wants. That's what he wants with her. Only her. Nobody else _exists_ but her, and he's just a kid—a stupid, sentimental kid—but he loves her more than there are words to describe the feeling, and surely, he thinks, this is all he'll ever need to feel completely and utterly happy.

Minutes tick by. He's not sure how many. A loud clatter from the kitchen jolts them back to reality, and they break apart, breathless.

"Wait," she whispers.

He doesn't know what she needs him to wait for, but he'd do anything she wanted, so he rests his forehead against hers and closes his eyes, letting the sound of her quick, ragged breaths fill him up until they soften and steady, and until his heartbeat slows its pace.

"Our parents," she says, after a while, as if she's just realised where they are and what it might cost them. "They're just inside—"

"I know."

"We should—"

"I know."

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be."

Reluctantly, she pulls away, and James is left cold and bereft and wanting her back.

"Can I come to your room later tonight?" she asks him.

He nods. "Wasn't planning on sleeping."

"I want—" she begins, but the words catch in her mouth, her eyes darting down towards her toes. He's forced to resist the urge to pull her back into his arms. "I've never, um, with anyone else, you know?"

RHis eyes widen. _"Oh."_

"If that's going to be a problem—"

"Me neither," he tells her eagerly. "I've never done—and I never wanted to do it with anyone but you, so..."

He's caught her gaze again. "Really?"

"I've been crazy about you since we were kids—"

"Because I want to," she says quickly. Even in the dark, he can tell that she's blushing. He's not used to seeing her nervous. Lily is the one with all the self-assurance, while he has all the appearances of it, but is a mess beneath the surface. She keeps her cool in fraught situations. He's the one who always falls apart. "With you, I mean. I trust you and I really—I want to, _so_ much, so if you—"

"I do," he says. "Of course I do."

"Great." She pushes her hair behind her ear. "Because I—yeah, okay. Are you coming back in?"

"In a minute. I've got to, er..."

Her eyes flick downwards very quickly, then back up to his face. "Ah. Okay."

"So I'll just calm down, I think, and then I'll be along in a minute."

"Brilliant."

"Wonderful."

"I'll see you in there," she says. "And, um, upstairs. Later."

Then she darts off, yanks the kitchen door open with more force than necessary—the hall is filled with a ringing snapshot of raucous laughter—and disappears inside, plunging him into silence once again.

 **Lily**

She goes to his room when everyone is sleeping, and she's never been so nervous in all her life.

It's scarier still when he opens the door.

"Hey," she says, with a whisper of a wave. He's changed for the night—boxers and a clean, white t-shirt that's better on him than a three-piece suit could ever hope to be—with a hint of sleepless darkness beneath his eyes, and the barest hint of a shadow on his brown, clean-shaven face.

"Hey," he echoes.

He has a man's body now, tall and lean and etched in hard lines, but softer lips than she possibly could have imagined.

Kissing him was a beautiful thing, but the girl she'd been earlier was more emboldened than she, spurred to action by a little too much wine and the swift departure of the last of her patience. The girl she is now has been seized by self-doubt, and too many questions to process; like maybe it's not her who matters. Maybe it _doesn't_ matter at all, who kissed him, or touched him, or came to his bedroom tonight. Maybe he's just a teenage boy who wants what he wants and maybe anyone will do, and she's gone and ruined everything by knocking on his door.

"I didn't know if—" She looks down at what she's wearing, a pair of baggy flannel pyjamas that she dons exclusively for comfort. His eyes make her feel as if there's nothing else he knows worth looking at, and her heart is fluttering like butterfly wings. "Mary and I brought this other stuff, but I didn't, and, I know I should have worn something... sexy, but I dunno, it felt—"

"You're lovely," he tells her, and pushes his door open. "Do you want to come in? I need to tell you something."

There's nothing else to do but walk inside, and change everything that ever was between them.

His bedroom has changed so much since the first time she set foot in it. The superhero bedspread that he bounced up and down on as a child, decrying her for reading instead of paying him attention, is gone, replaced by a plain, bold red, and most of his posters have been taken down. On the floor sits the pile of presents he unwrapped earlier, except for hers, which he has placed on his desk. There are more books on his shelves; books that are read and cared for, no longer coated in a fine layer of dust and left to feel unloved. His artwork is everywhere, pinned hastily to his walls, scattered across his desk, even a canvas propped up against the end of his bed. It's beautiful. He's always been so talented.

He _is_ a man now. Almost.

He's still by the door, and she hears it click shut, closing them into this space together, but she doesn't turn around.

"Do you want to sleep here?" he says, quietly.

"In your bed?"

"We've shared a bed before."

"Not like this."

"No," he agrees. "Not like this."

Slowly, as if time is running at half-speed, James's arms encircle her waist from behind and pull her towards him, so that her back meets his front and his chin settles neatly on her shoulder; her eyelids drop, and as he takes a deep breath—his chest expanding and contracting against her spine—she feels drowsy, and hot, as if she might be drunk still, and he presses a soft, sweet kiss against her hair.

"I love you," he murmurs.

Lily expels the breath she'd trapped behind her ribs and something bursts—her heart, or the stars, or a million different things. "James—"

"I love you," he repeats. "Turn around."

She does as he asks, and he doesn't let her go, securing her neatly in his arms.

"You kissed me first," he says. She could be forgiven for thinking him calm, if she didn't know his eyes so well. They're the only part of him that she can liken, still, to childhood, and reflecting back at her is the same fear that she carried to his door. "You did everything first, because that's what you always do. You're so brave, and strong, the way you dealt with having to move, and with your parents, and I had to—I had to tell you that, because—because you should know, before we do anything else, that this isn't just some silly, physical thing, like what our friends are doing—I love you, and I want us to be together, properly, and—"

"James—"

"No, listen, I _do_ love you, I do." He swallows a breath, or a lump in his throat, nervous still, but his voice is growing stronger. "You know how in _Anne of Green Gables,_ when Anne hit Gilbert over the head with her slate because he made fun of her hair—"

The laugh that leaves her lips is soft and breathless, almost indiscernible. "You read those books?"

"—and how later, Gilbert told her that he'd loved her from the moment she did it?" he carries on, nodding. "It's like that for me, with you, only you didn't crack me on the head with a slate, you used a jug of punch—"

"I love you too."

He has other things to say, perhaps, but they vanish, and the most palpable relief she's ever seen seems to shudder through him, and his entire body relaxes against her own. "Oh god, you do? Really?"

"Of course I do."

"I didn't think you would."

"You're the love of my bloody life, you silly idiot," she says, and takes his face into her hands, because it stuns her, utterly, to think that he could know her and not see that. "And my best friend, and the only person I ever want to be with, _ever,_ and if you don't realise that—if you don't realise that I love you so much I could burst, and that you were the worst thing about leaving, and the _best_ part of coming back, then..."

"Then?"

"Then I'll just have to keep on telling you," she concludes. Her eyes are suspiciously misty, and she doesn't know if she should laugh or cry, but she's sure she's never been so happy in her life. "Every single day, that I love you, I love you, I love you, until you bloody well start to—"

"I believe you," he says, and drops his head to catch her lips with his, kissing her, _he's_ kissing her at last, gentle at first but ever more insistent, and whatever words she meant to use to prove her love dissolve into a happy sigh that only he will ever hear.

She loves him and he knows, and they were stupid fools to miss it for so long, but none of that will matter anymore.

And after that, when there's nothing left between them, not the sea, nor a lie, nor a scorching flush of misjudged childish hatred, nor even clothes to hide beneath, they find themselves traversing pastures new together. It's a strange thing, really. She doesn't know what she's doing, but neither does he, and it's made all the better for figuring it out between them. It's not as smooth as silk, nor is it a perfect collision of hot, unbridled passion. It's awkward, and shy, and even a little painful.

But sweet.

It's all so wonderfully sweet.


End file.
